[DesertRat]

Food warehouses tend to involve long delays waiting to be loaded / unloaded. They can really ruin your day. Anytime your wheels aren't turning, you aren't making money, so sitting around waiting is generally a bad thing. And if you go to a grocery warehouse, it is almost guaranteed that you will sit. Worse still, you will often sit in line waiting for a dock door to open, or you will stand on the dock, waiting to count the product coming onto/off of the truck. That means you can't use the waiting time to catch a nap in the sleeper.

[beachbum2]

Whoops

[beachbum2]

Originally Posted by beachbum2

After 10 years otr (1 1/2 with Stevens) I must say Stevens Transport is the worst. They lie about time out 3-5 weeks out usually was 4-9...YES nine weeks out once!! Was in Atlanta 3 times during this period and they wouldn't allow me to go home in Tampa...They pick up OJ 25 miles from my house. Most new drivers FINALLY get close to home and leave the truck at a truck stop. 23cpm doesn't add up very fast.

You drive from Dallas to Phoenix and end up driving 146 miles for free...It is all I-20, I-10 unless you make a turn at every cow-path on JR's ranch.

Who can live on 23 cpm? My trainer took me by his house in Colorado and there was a note from the Sheriff on the front door...Notice to vacate for non payment! Should have hopped a plane then!!

Stevens doesn't recognize INCIDENTS, everything is an ACCIDENT so you are stuck with them. A $50.00 scratch (that they make you pay for) becomes a accident when another company you apply with calls for a reference. The safety dept. told me "we have 5-6 accidents per day!!! 650 trucks. 65 in my class, after 6 months only 2 were left!!!

[joasis]

The common thread is recruiters do their job and get bodies in the door. I have seen too many guys wanting to be truckers get selective hearing....and ask only feel good questions....questions that they think they kow the answer to and can feel good about what they hear.

I fell into this trap once. I was teaching school...hating it, and no money at home. I had sold out of flatbedding, had 3 freightshakers and 2 other drivers plus me, and quit when fuel started getting out of hand in '99....so I decided to go out and drive for a company....Covenant came calling, offering per diem, driver trainer from day 1, nice truck, yada yada yada and a little more yada.

Fact: Per diem, no matter from who, sucks if you don't need the tax lay-off.

Fact: Anyone who says average trip is 1200 miles needs to remember that for every coast to coast, there are dozens of 200 miles jaunts and you will not make money! If the wheels are not turning, you ain't making money!

Fact: Ex Bud Meyer truck, about a million miles and optimized idle that made it impossible to sleep, for me at least. Tractor had speed sensor problems and breakdown told me I was causing it by "overspeeding" down hills. Wouldn't fix, so I drove without cruise most of the time there.

Fact: I was hired as a driver trainer.....had 6 students in short order. They were so bummed out by the hassle of Covenant and BS promises, all quit in a few weeks....so my pay was adjusted. Turns out I was paid as a trainer ONLY if the student made it through the final test at the terminal.

And finally, this Fact: I was an O/O and independant for too many years to ever accept the way large companies treat drivers. I pulled into the terminal in OKC when I was quitting...never been there before. Opened a door and looked in for the desk to leave my keys...a fat slob jumped down my throat with the drivers are so stupid they can't read the sign that says "no drivers", and don't we all hate being treated like sh!t? I told him that he was a great reason to quit such a fine company, if I didn't already have a great reason! He started bitching at me and I said we can talk about it outside...he didn't offer to come, so I left and never looked back.

If I ever go back on the road, it will be as an O/O with my own authority and a laptop. But anyone who reads this and thinks about jumping in, remember, this is a lot of past experience talking, and so many guys quit trucking in less then a year, I think no one should consider a lease or buy on a rig til you have a few years to see if it is the career for you!

Originally Posted by Crete_drvr

I totally disagree with you soladad.

Roehl sucks, that's my opinion. I'm a newer driver only been driving 1 year and now I'm making .41 cents per mile which is roehl's top pay for van. I would have to work at roehl for 7 years to get that! I worked for them my first year and almost lost my house and cars. I worked damn hard too. Roehl claimed I'd be out for 11 days and home for 3, well in reality it was 14-18 out and 2 1/4 off, not to mention the times my hometime was interupted because they wanted me to go meet one of their drivers at a truckstop to take his load because he was "out of hours".

I don't know who these people are or what their motivation is for saying that roehl is such a great company to work for.

My dispatcher who was out of Gary, IN never answered his phone, ever. And was a complete jagoff! Thankfully he got fired. My next dispatcher damn near always answered his phone but was totally immature and threw temper tantrums. The only good, make that excellent dispatcher I had used to be a driver. I had 3 dispatchers in a little under a year.

I was talking to one of my fellow Crete drivers and he asked me what was up with roehl's recruiters. He called them to see if he could get on with roehl's 7/7 (wanted to semi-retire) and the recruiter asked him "how long you been driving and how many accidents and tickets?" the Crete driver ssaid "17 years no tickets or accidents" the roehl recruiter replied "well give me your social and I'll pull your DAC and find out for myself, I know how you guys are...". Needless to say the driver told him to go f* himself.

Let me also tell you about this guy named Troy in Marshfield,WI he would make sexist comments toward females in my orientation class and make fun of a guy who was overweight. Totally unprofessional.

Does this sound like a company you'd wanna work for? Not me.

Heck even the guy who owns www.roehldriver.com went to drive for Crete LOL

http://www.roehldriver.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=281

how can you disagree with what a person thinks of their own situation....despite what some people believe, some drivers are happy with their companies and make the best of it. Every company no matter how crappy the repuation is, has some happy drivers.

[kreeper01]

Smooth,

there is another company you want to add to this list:

Priority Transportation

Under there Reefer division, they want you to drive and "i do mean drive" 1500 miles in 9 hours (no BS):!::!::!::!:

Under there Dry Van division, they give you way to much time. Starting @ 5am and you are some 300 miles away and your delivery time is at 1700 (5pm) that night.

Avoid the companies that are mentioned here, avoid them like the plague :!::!::!:

Originally Posted by Smooth

There are a few drivers that work for these companies and do great and love the ccompany , most don't . Top 5 large carriers to avoid

1. Prime Inc.-No need to mention why

2.Western Express-Maybe a suprise to a few , but low pay , crap hometime and nothing but northeast and you have a junk company.

3.Heartland Express-Everyone says there pay is outstanding , if you have been in trucking and have a brain , you know it's not . Short route miles, short length of haul,heavy loads,heavy northeast,consistently low weekly miles,and they pay you for NOTHING on top of dispatched miles .

4.CR England-Has to be in the thousands of drivers who have been ripped off on the lease purchase plan

5.Swift-Most unqualified drivers on the road as a whole . Just a terrible company .

:!: :!: :!: :!:

[emerlin]

Originally Posted by ironeagle2006

4th Covenent sorry I do not drive for a company that has pedophiles.

You're probably not Catholic, then, huh?

[ben45750]

Very easy question to answer. The next 5 company's to go out of business, ooh...... don't know who they are yet do we?

Ever hear the line "one man's junk is another man's treasure"?

wow has there been a company not listed here? lol

[-FlyByNight-]

Originally Posted by emerlin

You're probably not Catholic, then, huh?

Like there are no pedophiles in any of the various Protestant religions or even non christian religions. :roll: