Stevens Transport, I call BULLS**T
 

I'm calling bulls**t :dung: on Steven's Transport.

We had recruiter in class today telling us how Steven's Transport was the best company to go work for :roll: .

He was telling us they have a driver getting 4500 miles a week :shock:.
4500 miles...whatever :roll:

Then he started pushing their Lease-Purchase program at us. A responsible company would not puch that program at a rookie driver with only 45 days behind him.
He then started to tell us that one of their drivers made $275,000 last year :roll: . Oh when will the bulls**t :dung: end?

I wonder what the school's staff will say when I tell them about the recruiter pushing the lease-purchase program at us? Which is a BIG no no where I am. That's why JB Hunt isn't allowed on the property 8)

This guy kept conterdicting himself every 5 minutes.

Anyone have any experience with this company. I was going to apply with them, but their recruiter scared me off 8)

Not technically impossible in the recruiters mind, because 70 hours at 65 miles per hour is 4550 miles. I highly doubt that you could get even close to that at Stevens. They run refers I think?

A fleece-purchase operator running team could take in $275,000 gross before expenses. Each driver might get to keep five grand after expenses, maybe. :shock:

The only way remotely possible to run 4500 miles a week as a solo driver would be 100% drop an hook with no more than 15 minutes in between loads and really long runs where you could keep your average speed up to 65 +

And even if you COULD do that, you could not do it consistently every week without being illegal. If you ran into your 70 one week, your 34 hour restart would just take a chunk out of the next week.

Im sure out of all the bottom-feeder companies out there, Steven's aint the worst one, and if I were forced to go with a company like that I think I would rather go with them instead of Werner, Swift, CRE, JB, etc.

But it aint the first time I've heard of a recruiter that come by and say some BS that actually backfires and makes the company look worse than it is.

Of all the crap we've heard out here about Steven's pretty much the worst of it was from people that werent happy about the way they handled their school / orientation, but if you got your CDL from somewhere else and dont need their indentured servant program, its probably not a totally bad deal.

4500 miles a week solo? I highly doubit it. Now, you may get that if you're a lease operator/trainer and don't mind running teams with some noob. Not to mention never going home unless you want to owe the company money.

Tyson is their biggest customer. Most of time you will be hauling Tyson product. Here's the thing, Tyson will hire students out of certain schools. If you qualify go to Tyson and make a lot more money starting off.

3500 a week is possible and doable if its drop and hook, 4500 is VERY easy to obtain...as a team. As far as the $275,000...hahahha, I'd laugh in his face. A team operation can run probably 220,000 miles driving hardcore and doing favors for the dispatcher. Keep in mind, they pay less than $1 a mile as well, but as long as drivers get a Kenworth they are happy :shock:

Sorry to disagree Banshee, but 70 working hours plus a 34 hour reset is doable every 6 days. If you come on duty at midnight monday after a 34 hour reset and you work on-duty/driving 14 hours and off duty 10 hours in every 24 hour period. 14 on Monday, 14 on Tuesday, 14 on Wednesday, 14 on Thursday, 14 on Friday for a total of 70 hours. Take the 34 hour reset from 2 pm Friday until 11:59 pm Saturday. This gives you the ability to work another 14 hours on Sunday. This gives you 66 driving hours and 18 on duty not driving hours per week every week in theory. If you want hometime thrown in there randomly it will throw off these numbers. This also depends on having the available miles and loads to make this work.

Oh come on. Who in there right mind would even attempt to drive like that. It's suicide.

The recruiter seemed like a used car salesman :evil:

I've written off Steven's completely now :wink:

Rawlco I hate to argue with you, as you are clearly much much more experienced in this than I am, and I whole-heartedly respect that, but even managing your schedule as you have suggested would require an average speed in excess of 68 miles an hour during that period of time in order to hit that 4500 miles. I will contend that if it is possible, it is not possible totally legal.

i got 4100 miles one week at PAM and as i recall i didn't think it was that hard.but you will need to take a restart into the next week if you're going to stay on the road.

nope.
i took two restarts working at pam and they worked out awesome. you just can't make it 48 or 50 hours you know...

Re: Stevens Transport, I call BULLS**T
 

I worked for them around 8 years ago. The lease purchase program was in it's infancy as was their owner operator division. I never talked to a recruiter, I was hired through the truck driving school they were affiliated with in Sunland Park, NM. I sent out applications to Werner and Stevens and Stevens got back to me first.

I went through the school in Feb 1998 and they paid for us to fly out from El Paso to Dallas (I hear they don't fly people anymore) and the rest is history. I had to quit in 2000 due to health reasons so I can't say that I'd still be driving for them today or not. I was satisfied back in 1998-2000. I don't know how much they've changed since then.

You are exactly right with this. I was only pointing out in my previous post that you can log more than 70 hours in a week and forgot to calculate about the 4500 miles. Thank you for catching my mistake.

With a different method of logging that will totally screw with your circadian rythms and sleep cycles you can log 77 driving/drivable hours in a week. Please note that this is crazy as Scott4m pointed out, and I do not condone it, but I like to play with the math :wink:
Starting Monday at midnight log 11 hours driving or on duty. Follow this with 10 hours off duty, and then 11 more driving or on duty. This makes for all of your duty hours drivable in theory, except for pre-trips/fueling/drop and hook time. Continue this for 6 driving/duty periods seperated by 5 ten hour off-duty periods. At 8 pm Friday you will have logged 66 hours and you could drive during up to 64.75 of them. 34 hour reset from 8pm friday til 6 am Sunday, and then start another 11 hour duty/driving period. This gives a possible 77 duty hours for 7 days, with 75.5 of them drivable given optimum conditions. 75 hours at 60 miles per hour will get you 4500 miles being 100% legal with the hours of service. Some companies may not allow logging at 60 miles per hour, and it is extremely unlikely that the freight would ever work out properly to do this. I do not recommend this because making your body conform to a 21 hour day/cycle will increase your fatigue level.

I am not standing up for the recruiter in this matter. I just like to play with the hours of service rules and the loopholes in them. :wink:

i don't see what the problem is --

65 mph multiplied by 70 hours = 4550 miles.
70 hours is 10 hours a day for seven days so why can you not log 4500 miles in one week?
lets say you were in the southwest and texas all week. you could log 65 or 70mph.. :?:

9ball, you have tons of factors that come into play here. It is not as simple as 10 hrs a day 7 days a week. You have to take into account loading and unloading, traffic delays, breakdowns, customer delays and such. Once you put all those other factors into the equation, you will have a completely new ball game.

I don't know much about Stevens myself... but i know a guy back in the old neighborhood that went with them. He's an Asian guy... but this is Houston, and ethnic stereotypes go out the window here. This is a big guy, maybe 6', with one hell of a Southern drawl, y'all...

I saw him when I went on my hometime, and he had me howling with talk of some of the stuff he did. Heck, he didn't need to tell me anything: we sat outside talking for maybe three or four hours, watching his truck idle in the parking lot across the street. He said he never, ever turned the thing off--not when he stopped to take a shower, not for meal breaks... not even when he'd go on hometime! He said he got messages constantly from the fuel department about his truck being on 100% percent of the time, and he said he averages about three miles a gallon. I have no idea what he has against Stevens--all I know is that they turned the nicest guy in SW Houston against them. It was frickin' hilarious to see this guy's revenge idling away in the HEB parking lot :-)

Stevens mileage
 

I think the best week I had while driving OTR is about 4200 miles in a week with the HOS that they changed over to a few years ago. And that was with a Pete that could turn triple digits, though I never ran it that fast. I think a more realistic mileage for a week in a 65 mph truck and a rookie driver would be about 3000 miles for the week and I think that would be pushing a rookie kind of hard, considering that they yet have to leard how to pace themselves. Also they are still trying to figure that industry out. I know when I first started driving I was as happy as a pig in poop when I got up to running 2500 mile regularly. Of course now I am doing 2000 miles a week and still making $1200 a week and home everynight.

If it's so bad for him, why doesn't he quit?

no i do understand- i am a truck driver. let's say you get long loads with good stops....4000 miles a week is not that hard if they give you the miles to run.

Here's why: Every time you begin a new day....you are required by the FMCSR's to do a "pre-trip" inspection. All time doing said inspection must be logged on line 4. Even if you only show 15 minutes for the inspection ...you are using up 1 hour and 45 minures in a 7 day period.

Now, in the event that you have someone tell you that you don't have to show any time for pre-trip inspections..they are only half right, because if you don't show it, the only way its going to get by the DOT or a safety audit is if you show the time on the post-trip. Failing to do it on one or the other.....is gonna get you burned and cost you big $$ for a log violation and the fines will be assessed for EACH violation. So if you get nailed for 7 violations....you could be looking at $3500.00...or more, just to get out of the scalehouse. If the offense is determined to be "egregious"....a judge can assess a fine of $11,000.00 and suspend your CDL.

Then, every time that you fuel, get loaded, get unloaded, do a drop and hook you are also required to go on line 4 and show those times as well. If you run 3 loads a week, then you are expending another 1 hour and 30 minutes. So....at a minimum you will have used up 3 hours and 15 minutes. So now you are down to 66.75 hours of driving time. Then add in the fueling times.... at least 45 minutes a week...now you are down to 66 hours.

The further problem is that you will have to do a real "song and dance routine" to convince someone that you "averaged 65 mph" for the whole 66 hours....something nearly impossible. Plus you would have to start and stop exactly on the quarter, half or full hours. And you'd best have a truck set at 70 mph, and have a real serious and sincere demeanor about you.... the DOT Officers that you will encounter are not stupid, nor are they fools.

They also have computer programs that they can plug your stops into and those programs know the speed limits just like my programs....and if you have logged 65 across roads with lower speed limits....you just bought yourself a speeding ticket....even if it happened in a different state, because the Fed granted the states DOT's to do it.

Now what is important to remember is this: You are permitted 70 hours in an EIGHT day period..... once you have expended the 70 hours you are going to pick up a ZERO at midnite....so you will sit for 24 hours before you pick up any hours to run.

Maybe, maybe not. If you read the paragraphs above, you would have part of the answer. Beyond that, lets say you are wandering around AZ, and your route shows you coming from the east through NM on I-40 then climbing up to Flagstaff....and right there...in the rest area just past Flagstaff on I-40, you get pulled in by DOT....he looks at your logbook, then looks at your bills...you've got 46,000 lbs of goodies in the box.... its quite possible you've got a serious problem on your hands trying to sell that "65mph" "average speed".....

Folks, other than that....I've logged 7981 miles in FIFTEEN days, and while its only 532 miles per day average....it wasn't easy, it was grueling and given the fact that it involved multiple loads, weird pickup times, weird delivery times, some waiting time.....it was actually "brutal". I called for a shutdown of at least a day....just to sleep and rest. I have quite a bit of stamina doing this....but even I know when to holler "Uncle". Stamina to do this requires alot of acclimation to the job, and being used to having your circadian rythyms all screwed up and being able to live with it. Also being able to sleep on demand...without regard to where or when. And on top of it all....keep your logbook straight.

Besides, maintaining a high average speed means being able to keep the left door closed for a lot of hours.....and its harder to do than you think.

Keep it right, keep it legal, and log it like you drive it!! In the end, if you screw up and have an accident...there is a very high likelihood you will get sued, and the lawyer suing you is going to get the last six months of your logs to examine...they will be "dissected" minute by minute, the fuel stops crosschecked and all the rest....and if his auditors find errors...the least of your worries willbe the LEO's....your big problem will be the judge and jury in a civil court that is going to nail you to the wall and take your income for the next 20 to 50 years to pay off a judgement caused by your foolishness or stupidity....and on top of that....kiss your CDL goodby.

I agree with Useless. Even maintaining a 65mph average in a 70mph truck is a good feat. Given todays heavy traffic, all the construction slowdowns, and all the rest.....you'd be lucky in some areas to average 61 or 62....and thats in 70 mph states when you're running at top end.

All things considered....go back and read my admonitions. Then read them again. Also, keep this in mind: The FMCSR's place a legal requirement upon your company to report your "wrongdoings" to the FED. Whether or not they actually do, I can't say...however, if you create and act out a pattern of obvious log violations, at some point they will have to, otherwise...if there is a problem, or they get caught in an audit....they will get financially hammered as well.

Google the name "Gunther" and see what happened to him. As in Gunther Transport.

I will agree that is is not possible to get 4500 miles per week every week. I do not condone driving illegally or manipulating logs. I am only trying to point out that sometimes it may be possible to drive more than 70 hours in a 7 day period. No inexperienced driver should expect to get this many miles as a company driver. The 34 hour reset makes this possible, and I was trying to illustrate how to effectively use it for a very motivated person. My previous post explained how to drive 75 hours in a 7 day period legally including pre-trips but excluding load/unload/drop and hook time. 75 hours at only 60 miles per hour is 4500 miles, perhaps possible for a truck that isn't governed and doesn't stop much.

Thank you Skywalker and Useless for pointing out other points of view in regards to this theory. Please don't be afraid to pick apart my theory, I won't get mad. :lol:

I know it's a petty-sounding sort of revenge, but it's all he can do--he's stuck with that contract. He's at the breaking point now, though: I think he's gonna tell them to shove that contract of theirs up their collective tail-pipe...

(I almost hope he sticks with them--it sure was funny watching that truck rumble away :-) )

That's the problem with so many drivers. They get all pissy when something doesn't go their way and they start job hopping or doing stupid things like that guy is doing. My tenure with Stevens wasn't all peaches and cream. I got pissed off that I kept getting sent to NYC or when I wasn't able to get repowered for hometime and I had to drive past Las Cruces to get to California and had to wait another week and a half to get home. But I made a commitment to do the best job I could do for the time I agreed to be with the company and I stuck to my word. A professional does their job even when they don't want to, as my mother always said. Obviously your friend is no professional.

I didn't do things that were going to reflect bad on me and had the potential to bite me in the ass later on. Some people don't have that kind of foresight I guess.

Perhaps, in your own way, you're right. When I was with England, I gladly sat down to my extra-large helping of crow and ate with a smile. They treated me like dogsh.t and I took it, thinking, "Well, I'm a rookie, and I'll be at the bottom-of-the-ladder for a while." That was before I realized there were real companies out there, and before my bullshit tolerance evaporated. Don't you get it, Packrat? You're an indentured servant for these guys. In return for your schooling you have to stay on for a year--a full year! They've got you, and they know it, and they believe this gives them license to treat the newbies like crap. Even when I was with Crap Roasted England I was treated with more respect than you guys were/are.

I respect the fact that you made a commitment, packrat, and that you tried to do your best to honor it. To quote a very cool poem, though, I will only say this: There is some shit I will not eat. Apparently my friend thinks the same way, too.

I wasn't treated poorly, you're making that assumption. I worked for them for two years, the year I agreed to and another year and the only reason I quit was for health reasons, not because I was unhappy with the job.

At any rate, you know you're going to be an indentured servant the moment you sign the contract. So I say if it's so bad, wait until your contract is over, tell them to go f--- themselves and get another job. But don't do things that will make you look like a jackass in the interim. Good reputable companies want good, reputable drivers, not somebody who does stupid things like run their truck constantly just for spite.

just a question......Why would you write off a company because of what one recruiter said? For all you know that guy could have been written up for blatantly lying to you on the phone. I guarantee there isnt one company out there that hasnt had a recruiter that lied or got fired for lying. Are you going to write off all companies? To lump all recruiters in to one group because one of them lied to you is a bit insane. That would be like someone lumping all drivers into one group because one driver killed 5 people. A fact: there are people who lie in every group of people. EVEN DRIVERS. You got lied to once by a recruiter....Im lied to by at least 10 drivers a day. Do I lump them all into one group? Of course not.
I just laugh about it and move on to the next one.

So......Obviously the guy was exagerating quite a bit....you called him on it. Move on to a different recruiter and get the truth. REALITY with almost any big company: you will probably average between 2500-2900 miles per week.

It does show you how one or two Malcontents representing a company can cause great harm. Companies must institute strong quality control polices and have immediate feedback loops to nip this stuff in the bud.

One feedback loop is to have all the information your recruiter will exclaim on literature, web sites, and in all advertisements. What does the newbie want to know .. CPM. Miles per week, Home time, Benifits, age of the equipment, drop and hook vs. live load, type of runs, type of freight.

It males it harder to lie that way and puts controls in place ...

If such behavior goes unchecked and becomes prevalent even ingrained into the culture -- then it takes years if ever to reverse the effects.

Even though I am seeing some improvements in JB Hunt for example -- The evils of management during the 80's and 90's still haunt message boards and truck stops today. The mistakes of Swift growing too fast will haunt Swift for the next 20 years despite the efforts of the new management team.

Just for debate sake, I will give you my take on the SWIFT/JBHUNT message board flamings that go on.
When you are talking about both these companies, you are talking about the two largest truckload companies in the nation. Between the two of these companies, you are talking about over 30,000 drivers. Im not denying that drivers havent gotten a raw deal at these companies....it happens at all companies. Many times it the drivers fault and he wants to blame others.....many times it might be the dispatchers or fleet managers fault. Now, for the sake of argument lets say 20% of all drivers just arent going to do well at any company. If you lump the 30,000 drivers of swift and JB into one pile and figure 20% of them just arent going to do well anywhere. That would make 6000 drivers all out there on the CB complaining that they were screwed. Now out of those 6000 drivers how many of them do you think werent really screwed but screwed up themselves. I would say quite a few. Either way 6000 drivers complaining makes a lot of noise. Now.....on the other side of things....say you have some smaller trucking company out there with 100 trucks. Say they are run really badly and are screwing 50% of the drivers....That would mean 50 drivers out there complaining. You might NEVER hear anything bad about that company on the CB or message boards. Would that make them a great company to work for?
As a recruiter I get to see this industry from a different perspective than drivers. I talk to at lease 150 drivers a day from all companies. I hear what they are happy about and what they complain about. I have never found a company that didnt have at least one driver say they were the worst company around. On the other hand, I have never found a company where a driver wouldnt say they are the BEST company around. You look at these message boards and it looks like Every single driver out there is not happy with their work or company. REALITY: The vast majority of all drivers at any company are very happy with their employer....Believe it or not....even Swift. I have talked to many Swift drivers that are happy there. Now....as a driver. You might ask, " If drivers are mostly happy with driving at JB, Swift, or any of the other big companies.....WHY DONT I EVER HEAR ABOUT THEM?" REASON: People who are happy tend to be WORKING not complaining.
Well thats my theory.....feel free to tear it apart if you must.

RiPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

May the force of the SHEEP be with you :D

You make an excellent point, and to an extent I'm sure it's very true...

I've gotten the impression from talking to alot of recruiters for several of the big training companies that some of the big guys out there have a system where they're making more money off of rookies and not giving a damn about turnover, whether you make them money for 30 days or 3 years, it doesn't really matter, they got their cheap labor + g'vt kick back for training + you paying back the 3k+ they put into your training. Retension isn't a concern as they've got enough people coming in to cover those going out. I've been researching the trucking industry for most of a year before making the move into training and the more I hear from recruiters the more this feeling is validated.

You definitely have a point with the numbers, but I truly think there is more of a racket going on here than you lend credit to...

60mph x 70 hrs may equal 4500+, BUT:

pretrips and fueling gets deleted from the 70, plus load and unlaod times. Also, 60mph isn't always realsitic...in IL the speed limit is 55mph, so it must be logged at close to 52mph or ya get a log violation for overspeed :wink:

[quote="BanditsCousin"]

60mph x 70 hrs may equal 4500+, BUT:.....


:?:
Last time I checked, 60 X 70 only equaled 4200!! 8)

[quote="Useless"] :P

Typo, I meant 65 x 70 as 9-ball pointed out. My bad :lol: I gotta start using the quote function again, I'm used to it being broken as it was for a few weeks a while back 8)

but still, even at 60, that mileage is pretty hard to attain, no? :wink:

well it depends.
like on the week i'm saying i got 41 or 42hundred-
i started out with a fresh 70 going fom st.louis to LA,then got there on 3 or 4 days logs or whatever it was- and took a restart right away until delivery on monday morning--
then started out with another 70 going back across to the east coast for another 3 days- then a little jaunt up through slowhio

and have everything in by next friday at midnight-
pam does that 'transflow' sh*t- it's like faxing your bills in instead of mailing them.

3 or 4 days is a big difference, up to 11 hr actually :) I don't know how to legally run STL to LA and be in ohio within 6 or 7 days legally, but I'm sure it can (and has) been done fudging a lil. :D

I figured as much, BC!! I was just razzin' you a little bit, all in good fun!! I do wholeheartedly agree that the prospects for those miles are mighty slim!!
8)