[devildice]

OK, JCT is definitely off my list!!

Spoke with a recruiter and all he did was "tap dance" around my questions.....made me feel uneasy and therefore they are off my list. Not to mention I have heard nothing but negative things about them running their drivers hard and trying to push their "fleece" program on the newbies.

Now, how about Southern Refrigerated transport (SRT)?

did a search and almost everything I found was positive but the threads were rather old.

Been in contact with a recruiter and she seemed to be very up front and honest (note I said "SEEMED"....she was a recruiter of course...lol)

Anyone have any info to share on SRT?

[Zombie6872]

All I know is, they have a lot of empty trucks at there new terminal in Texarkana.

[devildice]

After I talked with a recruiter I have decided to put SRT at the bottom of my list of prospective employers.

[greg3564]

What did the recruiter say that turned you off to driving for them?

[devildice]

I was asking her about their training program. She stated that a new driver must log 240hrs behind the wheel with the trainer in the jump seat.....sounds good to me!!!

The she finished up the statement with......"and if you don't feel comfortable enough to go solo, or your trainer feels you're not ready to go solo, we will but you on a team for 4 weeks".......sounds reasonable to me!!!!

Then the killer......

I asked, (not sure what prompted me to, but I did) "is that with the same trainer or another experienced driver?"

Here reply: "with either another experienced driver or another newbie"

SAY WHAT????? Another newbie????

So let me get this straight.......you have not 1 but 2 newbies that neither are comfortable to go solo or it was recommended by their trainers that they are not ready to go solo so you team them up?? The blind leading the blind.....

That is just a recipe for disaster if you ask me and none the less turned me off to SRT

[kenworth75]

As a former SRT driver, I recommend them to and for anyone. Do not let the fact you may and i say again may, get put out with another new driver. I didnt get that opportunity. The idea behind it is that you can and will bounce ideas and knowledge off of each other.
You want miles with the paycheck to match, SRT is a good company. The will get you home if you let them know in advance. Any company out there is the same, just a different color on the truck. Just depends what you are looking for. I came off the road for a family emergency, and started pulling petro.
I will tell you this, when i do finally get back to what i wanted to after leaving the Army, SRT will be the first company i call.

[greg3564]

I've always heard good things about SRT. That's who I'm looking at in the future.

[Skullitor]

SRT is a very good company.It's a good choice.

[MOTOXRIDER]

I am currently with SRT. I will be leaving soon. Like many others, I searched on the internet for driver testimonies on various companies while searching for a job.

I could find nothing that was recent about SRT, and what I did find was mostly positive. What I especially liked was that they promised a 1200 mile average length of haul.

It is now 7 months later. I was told in orientation that the bonus's were attainable. I did not get enough miles in either quarter I have been at SRT to qualify for a bonus.

I was told in Orientation that the average driver there made $58,000 a year. Well all I can say is that some lucky driver must be making $68,000 to get that average when my 48,000 gets added into the equation.

Average length of haul might be 1200 for the team drivers. It isn't for solo's. The short hauls with long detention times at both ends on the east coast reminded me of my former days as a JB Hunt driver .... except at JB I made more per mile.

And speaking of detention pay ... SRT promises $16/hour after waiting 2 hours at a shipper or reciever. Notice I said "promises", I did not say "delivers". The automatically generated computer message that comes over the Qcomm that is required to get the detention pay seems to function properly about 25% of the time.

The rest of the time, it is up to your dispatcher to put in for an authorization. This rarely happens. So you can give up on any crazy ideas you might have of getting paid any signifigant detention pay.

Twice I was cheated out of the $100 border crossing pay for entering canada ... it somehow did not make it onto my paycheck.

Another thing they like to do is to "forget" to add the extra .005 per mile for hauling hazmat. If you drive for SRT you have to check EVERYTHING on your paycheck for accuracy.

I also have been cheated out of expenses I paid cash for. I had to buy a disposable camera to replace one after lumpers tore up a trailer and I had to take pictures. I turned in the receipt ... the money never showed up on my paycheck. Ditto with oil purchases for the truck ... unlike every other company I know of, SRT will not allow you to purchase oil for the truck on comdata during a fuel purchase. The card cannot be used either, the only two options are to pay cash or use a comcheck. Once I paid cash and turned in the receipt. I never got paid. Even after repeated messages to dispatch and phone calls to payroll, they refuse to reimburse me.

Back to the detention pay issue, I have spent over 24 hours twice at shippers, and got ZERO detention pay. Repeated attempts to get paid are futile .. they simply do not answer the phone, or talk sweet and then do not follow through.

Dispatchers ... the biggest problem now at SRT. It was only weeks after I hired in that they fired 4 of their best dispatchers. And they did not replace them with experienced people. They hired trainees with no experience in the trucking industry. The few remaining dispatchers were stretched to their limit juggling large boards while training several newbies at the same time.

Many drivers were getting 1000 - 1500 miles per week. Many drivers quit. Someone must have realized they had a big problem. The solution was to fire 3 or 4 of the new trainees they had just spent months training.

One day I was in the new terminal in Texarkana and overheard a dispatcher speaking with one of the truck recovery drivers. 18 trucks had been abandoned by drivers who were quitting in just one day. A remarkable accomplishment given that they only have about 500 trucks. And SRT in orientation makes perfectly clear that they will trash your DAC report with "Abandoned truck" if you do not jump through all their hoops when quitting ... my guess is that a lot of them were trying to get the truck back to the terminal, but they were not given loads to get them there, so they committed career suicide and left the truck.

I wish someone had told me what was going on at SRT before I hired on there ... so I got on here to warn others before they make the mistake I did and hire in there.

When I hired in 7 months ago, I was amazed to discover that they did not have direct deposit. But they promised they were getting it very soon. Well, again, promise and delivery are two different things. As I type this, my bank account is empty, and there are three paychecks at home waiting for me to cash. Little things like this they cannot even handle. They do provide the comdata option, if you want to pay the fees to have the money put on your card, make phone calls and pay fees to transfer it. But what other trucking company today does not have direct deposit?

Another suprise was their requirement that you log miles on fuel ad every time you cross a state line. The trucks are all equipped with Qualcomm, but they for some nutty reason still force the driver to do all this additional work to document state mileages for IFTA. No other company I am aware of still makes driver do this. So add an extra 1/2 hour of paperwork for each load.

The problem seems to be that the company founder decided it is important for his Son to run the company. After he screwed things up, his dad had to come back and get involved again ... but their attempt to grow far to quickly seems to be more than either of them can handle.

Good luck to anyone who goes to SRT now. Maybe it used to be a good company, but those days are gone. Some people were concerned that when Covenant bought them, Covenant would ruin the company. But it seems that the original owners are managing to to quite a nice job of ruining it themselves.

[MOTOXRIDER]

Originally Posted by MOTOXRIDER

I am currently with SRT. I will be leaving soon. Like many others, I searched on the internet for driver testimonies on various companies while searching for a job.

I could find nothing that was recent about SRT, and what I did find was mostly positive. What I especially liked was that they promised a 1200 mile average length of haul.

It is now 7 months later. I was told in orientation that the bonus's were attainable. I did not get enough miles in either quarter I have been at SRT to qualify for a bonus.

I was told in Orientation that the average driver there made $58,000 a year. Well all I can say is that some lucky driver must be making $68,000 to get that average when my 48,000 gets added into the equation.

Average length of haul might be 1200 for the team drivers. It isn't for solo's. The short hauls with long detention times at both ends on the east coast reminded me of my former days as a JB Hunt driver .... except at JB I made more per mile.

And speaking of detention pay ... SRT promises $16/hour after waiting 2 hours at a shipper or reciever. Notice I said "promises", I did not say "delivers". The automatically generated computer message that comes over the Qcomm that is required to get the detention pay seems to function properly about 25% of the time.

The rest of the time, it is up to your dispatcher to put in for an authorization. This rarely happens. So you can give up on any crazy ideas you might have of getting paid any signifigant detention pay.

Twice I was cheated out of the $100 border crossing pay for entering canada ... it somehow did not make it onto my paycheck.

Another thing they like to do is to "forget" to add the extra .005 per mile for hauling hazmat. If you drive for SRT you have to check EVERYTHING on your paycheck for accuracy.

I also have been cheated out of expenses I paid cash for. I had to buy a disposable camera to replace one after lumpers tore up a trailer and I had to take pictures. I turned in the receipt ... the money never showed up on my paycheck. Ditto with oil purchases for the truck ... unlike every other company I know of, SRT will not allow you to purchase oil for the truck on comdata during a fuel purchase. The card cannot be used either, the only two options are to pay cash or use a comcheck. Once I paid cash and turned in the receipt. I never got paid. Even after repeated messages to dispatch and phone calls to payroll, they refuse to reimburse me.

Back to the detention pay issue, I have spent over 24 hours twice at shippers, and got ZERO detention pay. Repeated attempts to get paid are futile .. they simply do not answer the phone, or talk sweet and then do not follow through.

Dispatchers ... the biggest problem now at SRT. It was only weeks after I hired in that they fired 4 of their best dispatchers. And they did not replace them with experienced people. They hired trainees with no experience in the trucking industry. The few remaining dispatchers were stretched to their limit juggling large boards while training several newbies at the same time.

Many drivers were getting 1000 - 1500 miles per week. Many drivers quit. Someone must have realized they had a big problem. The solution was to fire 3 or 4 of the new trainees they had just spent months training.

One day I was in the new terminal in Texarkana and overheard a dispatcher speaking with one of the truck recovery drivers. 18 trucks had been abandoned by drivers who were quitting in just one day. A remarkable accomplishment given that they only have about 500 trucks. And SRT in orientation makes perfectly clear that they will trash your DAC report with "Abandoned truck" if you do not jump through all their hoops when quitting ... my guess is that a lot of them were trying to get the truck back to the terminal, but they were not given loads to get them there, so they committed career suicide and left the truck.

I wish someone had told me what was going on at SRT before I hired on there ... so I got on here to warn others before they make the mistake I did and hire in there.

When I hired in 7 months ago, I was amazed to discover that they did not have direct deposit. But they promised they were getting it very soon. Well, again, promise and delivery are two different things. As I type this, my bank account is empty, and there are three paychecks at home waiting for me to cash. Little things like this they cannot even handle. They do provide the comdata option, if you want to pay the fees to have the money put on your card, make phone calls and pay fees to transfer it. But what other trucking company today does not have direct deposit?

Another suprise was their requirement that you log miles on fuel ad every time you cross a state line. The trucks are all equipped with Qualcomm, but they for some nutty reason still force the driver to do all this additional work to document state mileages for IFTA. No other company I am aware of still makes driver do this. So add an extra 1/2 hour of paperwork for each load.

The problem seems to be that the company founder decided it is important for his Son to run the company. After he screwed things up, his dad had to come back and get involved again ... but their attempt to grow far to quickly seems to be more than either of them can handle.

Good luck to anyone who goes to SRT now. Maybe it used to be a good company, but those days are gone. Some people were concerned that when Covenant bought them, Covenant would ruin the company. But it seems that the original owners are managing to do quite a nice job of ruining it themselves.