Quote:
Originally Posted by kbraut832
Thanks, checked out Tandem's website, they don't hire out of Texas. Got an app in with Lone Starand Road Runner Transport, we'll see where that goes for now.
From a former Lone Star driver I can tell you that you will make money with them, that's not an issue and maybe being in the Houston area they'll do better at getting you home. I was with them for a short period and getting home was not an option. There is (or was) a serious disconnect between dispatch and the load planners. You could tell dispatch that you need to go home, your due to go home, your past your home time and the load planner only sees an empty truck on his/her screen, what kind of trailer you have and what level you are and puts a load on you without any knowledge or care about where you want or need to go.
However with that being said, they do pay you everything your owed, the equpment is excellent, the big boss Joe Bird andwers his phone and they do take care of the driver in the pay department. They also have a lot of business in and out of south Texas for Cat since all Cat loads going to and from Mexico go through Lone Star in Laredo. Or at least thats the way it used to be things may have changed since I left. I know the load planner that I got into it with was let go a week after I left the company. I don't know all the circumstances surrounding his termination but I do know of a few other drivers on his board that left around the same time I did and I can only hope that had something to do with it. My dispatcher on the other hand was probably one of the best I have ever had. She was a former heavy hauler with the company but had some heart problems and lost her medical so they put her in the office and she really knew her stuff. Not many dispatchers that can tell you where EXACTLY to position a D9 to get the weight dead perfect but she could.
I see it's been a while since your post so you may have already made a decision. I'm now with a specialized company that's small in comparison to Lone Star but they run me from my home out and back and the only thing I haul is oversized loads of aircraft components for Boeing. Unfortunatley they do not run to south Tejas much, all our over the border stuff is Herc-ed not jerked (flown in and out on C-130 Hercules aircraft). The equipment we run runs the gauntlet from the 2006 Volvo that I'm driving to new T660 KW's and 386 Pete's. As for trailers, we pull everything from extendable RGN's to flats to conestogas to a few vans. The pay is phenominal, the trucks are not cut back unless you start getting tickets or your CSA goes into the high yellow then you get cut to 65. We have APU's, qual-com, 5000w inverters and real refrigerators. No idle policy but you are expected to use the apu and not idle. For me that has not been an issue till today because I run 11-10 till I get back to the house where I reset my log and hit it again. However yesterday morning I pulled into the J in Casper only to notice antifreeze dripping all over under the front of the truck. I opened the hood to find a crack in the top tank of the radiator about 3" long spraying straight up onto the bottom of the hood. Being Saturday I'm stuck sitting here with a 14' wide load waiting till the Volvo dealer here opens Monday morning instead of getting home this morning and starting my 34 restart at the house. The up-side, the shop did tell me to keep track of my hours and expenses while sitting here because the minute the truck broke down I'm on the clock.
