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Originally Posted by Jim89048
We are considering Swift or CRST. What type equipment can we expect?
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My wife and I both, at different times, drove for Swift. They tout their well maintained equipment quite highly, but we never really saw any of it. Our experience was that the equipment, both trucks and trailers, was always on the edge of a breakdown. It was nothing at all unusual to spend a week out of every month sitting at a terminal waiting for a truck to come out of the shop.
We put our trucks in for various issues, but they were always shunted back onto the yard with a shrug from the mechanics. If it wasn't broken down by the side of the road, the general consensus seemed to be that it wasn't serious enough to bother fixing.
I once took a truck to the shop for some problems and had it returned to me with no changes made. In just a few weeks, it broke down for that same issue, and I spent a week and half stuck in a motel room having to check out every morning, sit in a lobby all day, and then check back in that evening when, once again, the inane shop they sent me to decided that it was "not quite done yet."
I'm sure some people have had better experiences, but that was the general tone of ours with regards to equipment.
As to the quality of the training, it's wildly dependent on the mentor you get (the person you spend your six weeks on the road training with). My mentor took the time to teach me how to back the truck up in different situations, how to do my log book, fill in company paperwork, how to manage my time, etc. He did a good job, in other words.
I later learned that my experience was the exception. Many of the so-called "mentors" simply put you in the seat so you can drive the easiest stretches and then take over the rest of the time, not letting their students learn anything about backing, paperwork, working with shippers/receivers, etc. My wife's was like that, and her job was made much harder for some time until she picked up on her own all of the things her mentor was supposed to have taught her. From what we heard from other Swift drivers, most their mentors were more or less like that, too -- just using the students to get extra miles for their own paychecks.
Miles... As far as the idea that Swift works its drivers hard... I can't really confirm that. Maybe it's different now, but we never could get enough miles to make do when we were working for them. I left the industry entirely to stay home with our two daughters. My wife, however, switched to Celadon, and there are plenty of weeks when she covers twice as many miles as she ever did with Swift. (Celadon requires a few months of experience to hire on, though, so it's not a training company.)
There are several husband and wife teams that drive with Swift, though, so if you catch one in a truck stop, go ahead and ask them how it's working out for them. Find out what kind of miles they get, how their training went, etc. Talking to people who drive for a company is about the only way to get a real clear picture of what the job will be like with that employer.
One option is always to get on with Swift (or Schneider - my wife says if she had to do it again, she'd go with them to train) and then, once you have a year or two, or even a few months, of experience under your belt and you've been "out there" for a while, talking to other drivers and sizing up other companies, you can switch to another place that might work better for you (and pay more money - Swift had the lowest rates in the industry for new drivers back when we were with them, and I would be surprised if that's changed).
I don't have any experience with CRST, so I can't comment on them.
I hope this has been of some help. It's not a job for everyone, but if you and your wife can adjust to the lifestyle that driving for a living brings, then you may find it is a wonderful fit for the two of you. Even if you don't do it permanently, there are plenty of couples who only drove for a few years but, in that time, managed to save up enough money to buy a house somewhere and settle down.
Lucas
Swift
