Doesn't sound like you'll have a problem. For the road test they will probably have you hook up to a empty can. You'll do good with the company where your at, I pulled down just over 42K and took a total of 4 weeks off unpaid, worked only 3-4 weekends and that only because I got going on a Wed. because I took a long weekend and during a real slow month of Dec.. We ran alot to Canada which was fine with me, it was 500 miles and ran it 3 times a week. And there was no running illegal thru the year. Had one incident when I first started, I picked up a pre-load late because I was out of hrs. I just didn't do my 10 hr. break when I should have. Kind of a long story but I got the load delivered on time, even early but the shipper still made a complaint. (WaaaWaaaWaaa) Terminal manager wasn't upset at all, he was good with what happened and just gave me some advice rather than criticize. Thats what I like the most about the co. Always willing to help me. But I suck it up if I screw up. Sounds like your in anyway but BOL just the same.

I ain't counting my chickens before they hatch. But should do fine in the road test. The only real concern I have is the tank thing only pulled a smooth bore fuel in the military and on a very limited basis maybe have 5/7 k miles total over 10 years ago I got out of the CORP in 98
I am limited on tank ( very limited) .
Terminal manager ( shelea) said not to worry I would go to kingport first then she. Would run me local till I got proficent on tank procedures , paperwork, etc.
So that's good I just didn't want to get thrown out to the wolves to soon sounds like they got a good training program .

Hazmat don't bother me ( the certification part) we had to recert every year at walmart on it.

Most of my career has been on strait 10 speed internationals (with 48 in bunks) the typical walmart truck little over 5 years of my 10 civilian driving experience was with them spent 4 with US Foodservice delivering OTR on a burger king account ( tight parking lots) and 1 year deliving hardware for Ryder logistics ( do it best hardware account) which is small mom and pop hardware stores. Bout 15/ 20 drops a trailer.

My work history and safety record will probally get me on but just limited tank exp is my concern but all will be ok in the end it's like everything else got to learn it.

Well you have alot more tank exp. than I had when I got hired, in fact you have alot more exp. in any driving before I got hired. I was right out of school and got the thumbs up.

Semper Fi Devildog.....more on that later!

I'm sure you hit all of the info I had at the front but it's here again after I throw in my .02 worth...

I've been here since July 31, 2006 and not going anywhere! I can't add much to what everyone else contributed with the exception of my personal experiences here........ Thanks to all the other guys for helping to fill in the blanks and answer questions In a nutshell I'm extremely happy here. Number one reason is that Superior has always worked with me from the beginning on taking the time off that I need. Outstanding, particularly since I must take equal home time between FL and IN. I get no grief whatsoever over what my personal situation dictates and I honestly doubt there are any other companies out here (besides another chem tank outfit) who would allow me the leeway I require. Anyway, with that said, I think that from what you've said in your posts we should be a good fit for you. Memphis may very well work for you, and if I remember correctly I think Nashville is primarily local and dedicated trucks.

As for running the system the other members of the gang here can help out far better than I, as I've been running on a dedicated fleet since Nov. 2007. In the system you should have no problems whatsoever making a good income and getting good home time. It just all depends on how hard you want to work, how much home time you desire, and how well you learn the system here. Keep us posted on how things work out for you. Hopefully you will be joining us here as a member of the Superior family soon.



My personal stats as a driver here at Superior Carriers (July 31, 2006 to January 4, 2009)
Gross Pay: $128,371.71 (All taxable gross pay as a company driver and post-expense pay as an I/C)
Hub miles: 258,697 (Avg.: .496/mile)
Days Working: 591 (66%)
Days Home: 306 (34%)

:lol2:

Here's the rundown on the basic pay package for company drivers again............
Mileage pay (Practical Route Miles):
.415 Loaded/.34 Empty.

Loading/Unloading Pay (All live loads):
$20 first 2 hours, then $13.30/hour.

Drop/Hook Pay (For load pickups/drops):
$10.
Note...if a driver is delayed more than an hour during a drop and hook at a customer due to the load not being ready, waiting for security, paperwork, sample results, etc. then the driver will be paid the $20 live load flat rate, then hourly as necessary.

Dispatch Delay Pay: (paid from 0800-1700 Local time)
$13.30/hour.
Paid when at a terminal location and no load is available to either hook up to or, to go and live load at a customer.

Tank Wash Pay:
$20.
Note...almost all tank washes involve dropping the dirty tank and/or hooking a clean tank during which the driver is paid according to the hourly rate. If the driver is required to wait for their assigned tank to be cleaned then the driver will be paid the $20 tank wash flat rate.

Breakdown Pay:
$13.30/hour.
Breakdown pay will be paid immediately upon breakdown and is paid until the driver goes into a hotel if necessary due to an extended breakdown situation, then will go on layover pay schedule.

Sleeper Berth Pay:
$10/night for every night spent away from home terminal.

NYC Pay (per load going in or coming out):
$50

Canada Border Crossing Pay (per loaded crossing):
$15 first hour, then $13.30/hour.

Local Pay (Loads under 76 miles of domiciled terminal. Also, 51% of your loads must be "local" to be paid this rate, otherwise will be paid the normal hourly rate.):
$16.54/hour.

Layover Pay (after 15 hours):
$13.30/hour ($106.40 each full paid 8-hour period). First fifteen hours free, then paid eight, then ten free, then paid eight, etc if necessary. Hotel authorized for extended situations.

Holiday Pay, Bereavement Pay, Jury Duty Pay:
$106.40/day.
Eight major holidays, one floating holiday, and three days for funeral of family member.

Personal Days (after 30 days):
$106.40/day.
0-3 years: 2 days per year.
3+ years: 5 days per year.
Note...driver can "bank" up to thirty days.

Training Pay (Depending upon experience):
Experienced drivers: $13.30/hour all on-duty hours.
Inexperienced drivers: $100/day for up to six weeks, as deemed necessary by trainer.
Also, within sixty (60) days of hire, driver must attend the company's five-day safety and orientation course in Kingsport, TN. Driver will be provided company-paid lodging and paid $100/day training pay. If driver fails course they will be immediately terminated and not eligible for re-hire.

Vacation Pay:
$793.92/week (48 hours x 16.54/hour).
2 Weeks at 1 year.
3 weeks at 8 years.
4 weeks at 16 years.
5 weeks at 24 years.

Time Off:
5-7 days out, 1-2 days in unless driver requests to stay out longer.

Insurance (after 30 days):
Health, Dental, and Prescription Insurance:
Single plan $18/week, $250 deductible.
Family plan $37/week, $500 deductible.

Life, Short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance are paid for by the company.

Vision Insurance:
Not available.

401k Plan (Open enrollment every quarter. Company automatically enrolls driver at 3% unless other amount requested or driver declines enrollment):
Company matches 50% up to a max of $600 annually. Immediate vesting.

Profit Sharing Plan (After 1 year)
Vested after seven years.

Hope this helps you out some, feel free to give me a call anytime if you have any questions (sent ya a pm). Be safe and good luck!

:thumbsup:

Not a problem... My pleasure! If you have more questions feel free to ask.

Indian River Transport

:thumbsdown:

THEY SUCK! Indian River is the bottom-feeder of "easy" food-grade tankers, and Bynum and Oakley aren't far behind.

-Still paying HHG short miles.
-Bonus pay tied to impossible incentives to achieve. That is, unless you never go home. Even then they have their "fail-safes" in place to get out of paying these.
-Like their Florida-based brethren Bynum and Oakley, overpriced insurance.
-Have a non-existent benefit package.
-65 m.p.h. trucks with 75 m.p.h. dispatchers. Unless they turned the trucks back up with the price of fuel dropping.
-Safety department is a joke, as every time someone has come in to clean up the mess, they mysteriously are shown the door (can't be cutting into that profit!).
-Hometime...don't plan on much of it if any!

Indian River has a very good track record of firing operations personnel to supposedly "clean up" their outlaw image, yet also have a habit of firing the safety director when he takes positive action to get them right with the D.O.T., resulting in a loss of profits to the owner, since the screws begin tightening on the drivers there who average a minimum of 3,500 plus miles week in, week out. Another trend is to sit the drivers who insist on running safe and legal, and who refuse to do dispatch favors by covering loads that should have been picked up much earlier and usually with more time necessary to make a legal, safe delivery. There's so much more bad to say about them than good, but anyone who's reading this can figure out where this goes! There's not many drivers who will stay with Indian River, much less retire from there, unless they're one of the drivers who've been over there from the beginning. But wait a minute, at Indian River you can drive one of 'dem there big ol' Petercars with that big kitty cat motor and that big sleeper and run all the miles you want! :rofl:

Opies..... I ran across several Opies drivers when I was running with Aartman years ago and they were a happy bunch, though from looking at their pay package it leaves much to be desired. But personally I would never drive for them or any "easy" food-grade company again. Just too damn much running for the pay that I make now doing so much less work to achieve. There simply is no comparison between any easy food-grade company and a good chemical outfit. NONE!!!

Concerning the company formerly known as Jim Aartman, now Ruan, I would say that they have been effectively "ruined" by Ruan's policies and lack of any increase in the pay package for the OTR drivers, whereas the local guys seemed to initially make out well when the buyout went into full effect. I attribute much of Aartman's demise to the mistake of opening up a terminal in FL and hiring former Indian River and Bynum personnel to run the show and then, continuing to keep them on board after it seemed that it was everyone else who always took the fall for problems that always rolled downhill. When dispatchers and terminal managers are getting fired almost as often as you change your underwear, it seems logical to clean house starting at the very top. However, that wasn't the case as obviously some people know how to always come out smelling clean regardless of how much crap they fall into...

Had things never developed in FL and the company had stuck with being a predominantly West-coast and Midwest freight lane runner with dairy, egg, and yeast products and with the occasional FL juice load, and not tried competing with the Big 3 down there for a full-scale operation in the Florida juice and Southeast milk markets (which was done at the insistence of the FL personnel) I feel that it would still truly be Jim Aartman of Ripon, CA. And honestly, I would probably still be driving there as well. For a tad over two full years I absolutely loved being based out of and running for Pam and Jon out in Ripon, though I still lived in Florida. The work was always there for me as well as great home time. I can't stress that enough...I LOVED IT THERE! I'm sure many who ran out of Ripon will agree on that point. But the writing was appearing on the wall that changes were coming, and not for the better...

Unfortunately the people in Florida tried making it Jim Aartman of Mulberry, FL and for some strange reason always seemed to have their ideas accepted and implemented thinking that they could make things better than it already was, and how things had been done years on end. And in the end they screwed that company up so bad by doing things the way they had done it at Indian River and Bynum, with the notion that the company would make more money doing things their way. Ruan coming in and implementing their policies is nothing more than a band-aid being put on a sucking chest wound, and if things don't change drastically an amputation is probably going to occur in the future. Ruan will most likely just simply cut their losses and that long-haul food-grade element of the company will simply fade away and be absorbed by other companies out there. Eventually they will get tired of hitting their heads against a brick wall and realize it hurts enough to stop doing it!

:thumbsdown:

Ironically, the terminal that Jim Aartman/Ruan has in Mulberry, FL used to be a Superior Carriers terminal at one time before they moved everything over to Lakeland!

hello folks

Special thanks to all that post on this thread .
Cyanide, skywalker thanks for the phone time it proved very useful

Day 1

Talked to cyanide over the phone gave me directions to terminal (thanks they were right on) got there at 1125am met shellea and did a small amount of paperwork .
Head to get physical/ drug screen ( all well 2. Year card)

Got back to terminal at 1315 met Howe a trainer and went on road test. Went over some brief tank procedures and climbed up on one to see valves and air lines learned also about side and rear discharge tanks and some containers
Went on a 23 mile road test crossed 6 tracks and did 2 backs pretty easy test

Oh started with pretrip ended with post trip

Came back in signed somemore papers gave copies of drivers lic , ssn card, birth cert

Secured at 1545 was told should be offical soon probally will run some regional and local stuff then head to Kingsport on jan 26 for corporate training they seem to want me on the team and felt welcome the entire time.

I like what I saw and look forward to my future here

Thanks again to all

Skywalker give me a shout (grand pa) LOL ....

Devildog I will call u back on Tuesday sorry my phone has been going crzy dropping signal etc it did the same thing to me and skywalker like 5 times

Anyway all is well should be offical soon

Ky 24

Ohhhhh raaahhhh !!!!!!

boat pictures looked great I got a chance to see them last night.

this post is for student drivers getting out of school soon...

I have seen this asked on other foreums thought I would address what I was told today

Superior was taking students whom finished in top 3 percent they have or are soon dismissing this program. They ( I was told) are going to require 18-24 mths exp

Here are other changes coming

18-24 mths exp
1 ticket in last 24 mths 2 in last 3 yrs
Accidents 1 in last 3

Some terminals I was told may still be taking recent grads . So if you are wanting to work for a good outfit with good people and u are a student better not delay or put off

Also looks like a big contract with
Dupont may be lurking also more business is always good

Welcome aboard Mr KY 24!!

I'm outta Atlanta, hope to see you around.

DO NOT be one min late to your first day at Kingsport training they will ask you to leave. Also have your cell phone turned OFF. Jack and Mike are really fun and they make the class interesting, they mess with everyone so don't get offended. Don't stress the final exam, just take your time and use your books and look on the wall You will learn a lot about the company and some things of which you did not know about being a professional driver. They also take the class out to a nice lunch at the end which you can order what ever you want, minus alcohol.

Have fun and stay safe.