You are way off base here buddy.. I've been driving for nearly 13 years and if any company tried to charge me $500 for an accident you would hear me yelling a 1000 miles away. And as far as log books are concerned, it doesn't happen everywhere. Certainly not at Crete it doesn't. Sounds to me that you are the child here.

This is, was, and always shall be, a huge mistake. I know. Did the same with JB Hunt. Ignored the boards. I guess we never learn, right?

Wrong. Now, don't even look at offers if their are complaints on this board. People post them for a reason. And there are a few who will say great things about the same company. So who do you believe? Good question. I don't know, but I learned NOT to dismiss a complaint because a driver may just be disgruntled.

Just my .02

Millersod, it's true about convenant. Me and my friend both went to LCT but he didn't pass the physical. He is now at Covenant and everything that this guy posted I hear on the phone from my friend all the time. Sure LCT has the same policies but it's a much smaller company and you can at least get into the office and talk to them. For instance I was held up at a shipper for 9 hours yesterday and I was hysterical, and I don't take "we'll take care of it".To make a long story short I finally got to the person in the company that was directly in charge of approving detention times as well as the head customer service rep in charge of that customer. Try doing that at a big company.

As for training, when I drove my trainer was in the seat next to me AT ALL TIMES. And I was only in training for a few weeks as I drove local. My friend drove local with me and can drive yet they have him out there for a couple of months. Also with LCT you are paid $65 a day for training.
While at covenant about 13 or 14cents per mile and what's worse if you don't understand logs the trainer can manipulate the logs to make it look like he drove more than you which is what I believe is happening to my friend from what he is describing to me. And what's worse you have to wait apparently for the trainer to turn in the paperwork.

I may have my gripes with LCT, but from what the original poster wrote and from what I hear from my friend I would have lasted about one week at Covenant at the most.

One final thing, Covenant is a publically traded company so I'd be interested to hear if anyone has looked at their financials to see if they report any income from driver's fees.

I agree with Usless...they are a Christian company till it comes to THEIR money.

Never had nor ever will have the pleasure of working for them, too many bad stories....where there's smoke there's fire.

I have strong feeling about companies that do "chargebacks" to a driver.
First a company can't take money for this kind of stuff out of your check unless your give them signed permission to do so. Companies that take money back from their employees generally suck, they don't give out big bonuses when they make the big bucks either, it's always a one way street in their favor. That is the reason thay are rich. I saw an article where Russ Gerdin the majority owner of Heartland Express sold a very small amount of his stock and made 100 million off it.....just how much money does one guy need.....the total value of his stock was about 500 MILLION.

I wonder how many good drivers are run off from the trucking industry by companies like this one.

Oh Please. There isn't one company that someone isn't whining about. If someone listened to every complaint, about every company, they surely wouldn't even think about getting into trucking. Maybe the problem is people coming into this business wearing rose-colored glasses. Then, when they see clearly, they don't like it so much. Then the company bashing begins. It serves absolutely no purpose than someone trying to fix his hurt little ego.

This is why you research a company before you join them. I know that some things are not told until you get to orientation,so the best thing to do is talk to as many drivers you see that work for the company you are considering and ask specific questions,not just do you like working there.

We are all an example of truckers: Not one who is right or one who is wrong, but one who is willing to share experience, post information and possibly help others, as well as ourselves. millersod always takes time out of his busy day to scan posts, answer questions, provide information to drivers and yes give his opinion. His honesty at times reminds us, as humans there is no shame in venting, yet our predicament may have been influenced somewhat by our own actions. What would you rather have, someone who tells it straight as they see it or an A__Kissing sugar coater who agrees with everything you say.

The $500 is probably the insurance deductible. As far as the tires, its kind of like a "core charge" for the casing, which can be re-capped/re-treaded (and NEVER put on my truck :lol: )

HTH

Just got back in from work, and i see that the accident deductible has come up in conversation, i guess i'm off base on that, i'm not too much of a man to admit when i'm wrong, i guess what i was trying to say is that this poster "sunset" was lucky to still have a job after a preventable "fender" bender. And yes murph, i do try my best to be informative, and not to just cause problems, after four years of driving, and making it my career, i looked back on when i first started and realized most of my gripes and complaints were to just make up for my short comings in this industry. I was just simply saying it seems this poster is in the same situation i was a couple years back, a little too much foolish pride seems to get in the way of a lot of new guys out there on the road. I'm the first to admit OTR is not my thing, and i respect everyone out there who does it day in and day out, i prefer my local 5 am to 3 pm job, works great for me, i just get tired of new guys posting what seems to be the obvious complaints with new companys, and always saying that's the reason they left. That's as far as i'll go with this post, i'm not here to offend anyone, i guess i'm just trying to get the point across that i feel if you can stay open minded in this driving game, and allow things to come and go and not look at all the negatives of a career in driving, we might see much more people succeed at this adventure we know as "truckdriving".

It is true, Sunset. If you roll into an area where the chain law is in effect, you, the driver, will be fined if you do not have chains on your truck. Covenant does not supply their trucks with chains. I was driving toward an area that the chain law could be in effect. I told Covenant dispatch that the truck was not equipped with chains. They wrote back that they would be happy to purchase chains for the truck. And then take 25 dollars a week out of my check to pay for them. And I will then be a proud owner of a set of chains for tractor trailer! Woo Hoo!!! I couldn't wait to tell my family the good news!!! "Honey, I know we owe alot of bills, but I have to help Covenant keep their truck running. Thanks for your understanding. I will make it up to you next month, I promise. Bye now." But instead I told Covenant I was not an owner operater so therefore declined to purchase equipment for their truck. I am a company driver driving a company owned truck. I asked, does Covenant wish to purchase chains for their truck so I could do my job? Covenant wrote back to me that "they do not buy chains for their trucks because drivers illegally sell them to other companies". To sum it up, Covenant refuses to properly equip their trucks with chains because drivers have committed the crime of stealing them from the company and selling them for a profit. And if you are a Covenant employee, you are viewed as a criminal waiting to sell their property on the black market. They avoid telling you this at Orientation. So if you want to work for Covenant, don't forget to save some of your hard earned paychecks so you can pay to keep their truck running. Don't fret though, fellow drivers, you will only be in debt to Covenant until you pay off the chains they need to keep their trucks making them a profit.