i think maybe by the time i got into ohio it was into the second week.
it was because i went from LA to dallas then to NC then to ohio.

1. My comments were not so much from listening to disgruntled drivers but by doing business case studies on these companies. How they grew, (buying companies vs. increasing market share through competition); What polices they implemented like HR and benefits; Logs and Safety; Marketing; Freight strategies; ....

So my thoughts were that when a company grows rapidly and does not have strong leadership to implement polices then the company spasmodically implements its own polices and they tend to be headquarter and infrastructure biased without regard to its effects on the driver or the holistic company. The final result is that quality suffers and finally shippers seek elsewhere. The ramifications of this cycle lasts for years.


In the case of this thread the lack of recruting feedback loops enabled this recruiter to tell tall tales which has ended up in this thread. In addition., Stevens Transport has had its share of bad press because of nepotism in the front office. Eventually these companies sink or swim ..

Im so damn glad my o'lady talked me out of getting on that greydog to dallas :lol: :lol:

If you thought the recruiter was BS, the company's worse
 

Stevens Transport will promise every lie you will swallow, and then back up none of it and get mad if you call them on it. Here are some of Stevens Transport rules you will have to follow to work for them. You must go down 5 and 6% grades in 4th gear, that's about 9 to 12 mph, wanna hear every other trucker on the hill scream at you, but it's Stevens policy. You must maintain 540 feet of space between you and the vehicle in front of you, try that on the Jersey Turnpike, but it's Stevens policy. You must call Stevens Safety to drive after midnight, to drive deadhead, to drive bobtail. When you call, no one will answer the phone for at least 15 minutes and usually 30 minutes. They promise 2500 to 2800 miles per week to new drivers, but you won't see 2000 a week generally. You will be waiting at shippers and receivers for no less than 2 hours and that is unusually fast if you only wait that long. I've waited 2 days for a shipper to load a trailer. Stevens promises tuition reimbursement, but they will deduct tuition from your paycheck. If you have a family and want the medical benefits, it'll cost you $80 a week, there is a co-pay for every visit and when you start with them at .26 per mile, the medical deductions will eat up whole paychecks. So you can expect $0.00 for some loads. When you do get a good load run, you will find that some lease operator needs a run so he can pay the ransom for the truck they are fleecing him/her on so you will have the load taken from you and be left waiting. Stevens runs all reefers generally. Like flowers and shrubs? You won't after they fleece you with one of their "nursery runs". You'll stop several times a day to air the flowers for 15 minutes, have 9 drops, be running around a town like a bread delivery truck and all for a paycheck that will leave you shaking you head wondering why you wasted your time. When you finally decide that going bankrupt working for Theivens Transport is simply not financially in your best interest, they will kick you out of their truck, leave you high and dry somewhere and then steal whatever paychecks you still have outstanding on trumped up deductions and fees. While working for them, your money will pay for their business whenever you run on a toll road, you get to pay the toll and they will reimburse you later. Need to pay a lumper to unload, you'll get a lot of that, the money is out of your account until they reimburse you after the paperwork is filed. You are told what fuel stops you can fuel at and they even lock you in to a specific location, even if that station is out of fuel at the time. You must submit a detailed trip plan to the home terminal for every trip, you must check call in every day and submit fuel reports every week and if Compliance wants to audit your logs, you must pay to fax them in to them, and they will reimburse you later. You wanna go broke and be aggravated to death, go work for Stevens, but don't say I didn't warn you. I been there, done that, got no tee shirt, but I do have a lasting grudge.

http://www.classadrivers.com/phpBB2/...ic.php?t=18671

Stevens transport lease purchase :roll:

Shoot I dunno. I did 4328 in 6 days, could have gotten to 4500 if I ran for an extra day. And I did it 100% legally too.

That included about 5 hrs total of loading/unloading time too if I remember correctly. So its totally possible.. maybe not at Stevens but it can be done and a lot of us are doing it. ;)

I averaged 4550 a week last year, running for myself of course and 100% legal.

I think the absolute max a solo driver could do legally if all he did was drop and hook and never wait would be 5-5200 depending on the speed limit.

Anyone who claims more than 682 miles a day is full of it. If the speed limit is 70 mph, then over 11 hours you will likely AVERAGE 62 mph, given traffic, starting and stopping, fuel, etc.

Even if you drove 11 hours at 70 mph nonstop, you wouldn't average 770 miles over 11 hours, as you have to get up to 70 mph at the beginning, and slow down at the end.

And I challenge anyone to show me any spot in the country where you can set your cruise control for 70, and not pop it off for 11 hours.

70 hours / 8 days = 8.75 hours per day - .5 hours for pre/post trip = 8.25 hours per day - 1 hour loading/unloading = 7.25 hours per day for driving (not counting fuel time)

7.25 hours X 62 mph = 449.50 miles per day X 8 days = 3596 miles in 8 days MAXIMUM.

Anything more is either BS or illegal.

Sorry for breaking my own rule and bumping an old thread. Sheepdancer made me do it. :wink:

But if you drive 682 miles in 11 hours and then take 10 hours off you still have 3 hours of "day" left (excluding pre/post trip and fuel of course) Keeping up that cycle you will be taking a reset day 6 and rolling again day 7. This gives you 77 hours in 7 days and 88 hours in 8 days.

Re: Stevens Transport, I call BULLS**T
 

This recruiter came to our class 2 days ago, the whole time he was "Preaching" I thought the same thing " Car Salesman"..."Bullshi*" I also found that he contradicted his self a few times, I called him out a couple times, the first time he kinda dodge the subject,didn't answer me question, then changed the subject. The second time he looked at me annoyed. (I think it was about the lease program) and he said "talk to me after class, i'll take care of ya"....after class he said he couldn't answer my question and gave me the number to a woman that ran the leasing dept.. who coincidently had the same last name..(Anderson)
I called my fiance' during a break and told her about it, and when i got home i looked here and was glad to see someone else caught the same things i did!
Sad part is i think MOST of the people in the class applied right afterwards and bought all the hype :?

Sure, if you did nothing but drive. What carrier pays you to do that?

70 hours / 8 days = 8.75 hours per day - .5 hours for pre/post trip = 8.25 hours per day - 1 hour loading/unloading = 7.25 hours per day for driving (not counting fuel time)

OR, if you want to do it in 6.5 days, and then take a 34 hour reset:

70 hours / 6.5 days = 10.75 hours per day - .5 hours for pre/post trip = 10.25 hours per day - 1 hour for loading/unloading = 9.25 hours per day for driving (not counting fuel time).

9.25 hours per day X 62 mph = 573.5 miles per day, or 3727.75 miles in 6.5 days.

Those claiming 4000+ miles per week are either:

1. liars
2. driving illegal
or
3. never stopping to load or unload

i love callin the recruiters out damm used car salesman,any how when i was at school a Swift recruiter came to see us man was he blowin smoke up every one azzes except which i wasn't going to Swift anyways his name was Calvin Adams hello Calvin i called him out then when i raised my hand for a ?? he acted like i wasn't there so i said F&ckem and went to another company till i got botted cause of Medical reasons.

Swift is stopping by tomorrow :D I can't wait to call him out.

Most of these people in class are the "stereotypical" trucker though,...so they buy into everything these guys are saying..I suppose if I were them.. I wouldn't change how I was recruiting if it was only pissing off 1 out of 20 people,..the other 19 apply, and I get paid if any of them go through with it...

P.S.
By stereotypical trucker I mean the "general" publics perception of truckers...i.e. "rednecks" how do I say this nicely? "Low I.Q." and i'm not being arrogant either, I mean SOME of these people can barely read outloud...

Thanks, Rev!!

It's reassuring to know that there are still a few drivers who can do basic arithmetic!! 8)

NEVER assume that ignorance equals stupidity or that just because someone was raised in a different culture than yourself that they are in some way less than or below you. I'd be willing to bet that you personally know someone who is a lot more intelligent than you, but happens to be illiterate and you don't know it. Now would that make you ignorant of a fact about your friend or just plain stupid :?:


P.S.
I may have been born in the south, but I'm not a "redneck" by any stretch of the imagination. I don't speak with a southern accent, eat grits and have never even owned a confederate flag! :wink: :evil:

Oh I'm sorry ,. I meant "Stereotypical",... meaning what the majority of people think of a certain group of people in a certain way......

I did NOT say that I agreed with the idea. I am sorry though, as I should've worded it a little better. I just mean that if you pulled a random person of the street and said does guy number 1 look like a trucker they would say yes...

And I agree I.Q. is not a way to measure Knowledge, rather, I.Q. is a way to describe a persons ability to "gain,hold,and use" knowledge of any kind..

I wouldn't use the word Stupid to describe anyone...A person is only ignorant if he/she refuses to learn or accept....Not knowing something or possessing a skill does not make anyone stupid,.

However I will say that you have NO argument on the fact that if a guy cannot read.......maybe he should learn BEFORE becoming a Trucker and making other truckers look bad... :?

You aren't a little bit insecure about being from the south are you?, you seem to have jumped at the opportunity to "tell me how it is"....

And the guy i was referring to wasn't a friend/acquaintance of mine, just some random guy in the group, I think he actually failed his drug test today....

They could have gotten that coveted Anchorage-Honolulu LTL linehaul run with the 100MPH amphibious tractor :D

creative loging
 

start day at 0700 pti
0708 start driving log shows start at 0715 leagel because you only log at 1/4 hour intervals.
drive till 1207 log show 1200 driven so far 5 hours at 60mph for 300 miles in 4.75 hours of book time for an ave speed of 63 in a truck governed at 66 makes a fun day rinse wash repeat. not sure if this is the way to inturpet the book but i think you can do it this way.

Yup that's exactly why I left the biz. Too many low-class morons willing to put chicken lights over a decent medical/dental plan.

Re: creative loging
 

Not necessarily. Short periods of time (less than 15 minutes), can be FLAGGED instead of dropping the line, but your PTI should take more than 15 minutes if you are doing it correctly.

Good luck proving that you averaged 63 MPH in a 66 MPH truck if you get into an accident. The law of AVERAGES is against you. Just one instance where you are forced to stop or slow down, and your AVERAGE is shot out the window.

But then again, you are suggesting not logging it as you drive it. Why? If it takes 5 hours, then you should be logging 5 hours.

Last Tuesday I round-tripped New Orleans from Houston.

I got my paperwork, hooked up and pre-tripped (1 hour) and left Houston, stopped at the state line and at the Love's at the 151 on I-10 (15 minutes each), 5.5 total hours driving to Gentilly in east New Orleans for a drop and hook (30 minutes on-site). Right back onto I-10 back west, where I again stopped at the 151 and the state line (15 minutes each). I got back into town at our drop yard (5.25 hours driving), dropped the trailer (15 minutes) and drove back to the terminal (15 minutes) and did my post-trip (15 minutes). 710 miles, 11 hours driving/3 hours on duty. 64.54 mph average.

That is driving HARD in a 70mph truck with NO accidents, NO slowdowns, NO rush hours, 3 scale pull-throughs, NO lunch, with a simple drop and hook. I also either rounded up or down to the nearest 15 minutes.

You can NOT do that every day legally. Whoever said he averaged 4500 miles a week last year is full of $#!+.

-----

Contrast that with today- To Corpus Christi Naval Air Station for a live load and back. 565 miles with a live load, fueling the truck, pre-trip and post-trip, a one hour break, and two 15 minute stops for en-route inspections. I averaged 60.47mph down there before the butt-crack of dawn and 56 mph back. The ONLY difference between down there and back was a train in Odem and a little traffic between Hwy 6 and the loop in Houston.


So, same 70mph truck, same hard running, and a 8+ mph swing in average speed because of trivial delays.

I have averaged well under 50mph before. The best I ever averaged was 66mph from Missouri down to Texas, and I was going 70 across 65mph Arkansas.

Again, you just can't do it, neither SAFELY nor LEGALLY.

-p.

(edited to correct a typo)

There's someone else who gets it. :wink: