ANOTHER MAVERICK ?.
 

IM STARTING SCHOOL WITH MAVERICK NOV. 6TH AND WAS WONDERING IF ANYBODY HAD ANY MORE INFO ON THER TRUCKS AND WHAT KIND OF MILES THEY RUN A WEEK?

ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

Your getting ready to start a job with a company and you don't know these things???

Re: ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

Mmmm, maybe he read a "truckstoprecruitingmanual", saw the 800#, called it and got hired..... later in a moment of "lucidity"....he shook his head and wondered..... Umm, what day is this? Does the sun come up today?, Ummm,
http://img139.exs.cx/img139/7553/sim51ah.gifuuhhh, what color is the truck....how many miles do it go....??

Talk about "being behind he curve".....http://www.gifmaniacos.com/Simpsons/barney/anibar.gif

Maverick
 

Go to truck.net, look for "Skills" blog. He went thru their training program and is pulling for them now. Also check archives here, he had some posts this past Spring. BOL

ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

Some learn harder than others I guess.

Re: ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

Flatbedding sure looks like fun! Maverick has Marlboro-man ads - perhaps that is the draw.

No dude, lucky for you Maverick is a good company that pays well, does a good job training, is quality oriented, and has decent equipment. They may use Freight-shakers but they are mostly new and well-maintained.

From my short time in the trucking industry there are two companies that I respect in flatbedding; TMC who I work for, and, Maverick. There are probably others that I haven't come across. I look at the drivers (mostly how they smell), the tractors/trailers and equipment that the company provides, how well they secure their loads, and how well they tarp.

Flatbed Fred is a good example of a superb TMC driver that does it right every time, you can see his excellent securement work here on his web site, http://www.goldiesplating.com/flatbe...ruck_91832.htm

Haven't been too impressed with Roehl, Arrow, or Kennedy. (Their drivers smell fine) Prime and CRST seem OK.

Like I said I am new and don't know jack.

NO I DONT KNOW THESE THINGS BECAUSE IT WAS THE WEEKEND AND THOUGHT I WOULD ASK ON HERE BEFORE I CALLED ON MONDAY AND ASKED FOR MYSELF!!!!!

ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

I wasn't trying to be smart. If you're just getting into this industry you might want to find out things about a company even before you schedule a school date. As von Seggern said, you're lucky to have picked a good company right off the bat. Good luck :D

YA I KNOW,AND I DID ALOT OF RESEARCH ON THIS SITE FOR A GOOD COMPANY AND MAVERICK SEEMED THE BEST ONE, THANKS FOR THE LUCK AND I HOPE I PICKED A GOOD COMPANY.

Yes, you picked a good company. As long as you don't mind a little bit of dirt and rust. Just get yourself a good pair of gloves. Only thing is... TURN OFF THE D*MEND CAPSLOCK! Please, really! Capslock makes you look like you're either yelling at us or a complete AOL newbie. Just kind of annoying, really. Sorry, had to say it. 8)

I was kinda curious as to how you know you are starting with maverick on Nov 6th. I have been on their list to go to their school for 2 months and I still dont know when I am going to school. They are calling people one week in advance to come in. Im not trying to be smart or anything but if there was a way to know a certain date to go to maverick, I would have perferred that. There are 5 or 6 other people on here that have said, I got the call Im going next week.

Sorry for the caps lock thing not yelling or anything just habit I guess, and for going to school thing, I talked to the recruiter on thursday and she asked when I was ready to come to work and I told her NOV 6 th so I could give my current job notice and get things squared away at my house and she said fine I was set up and we would keep in touch for the next 4 weeks, you might want to call to make sure they didnt miss place your app or something, they did my employment check and everything so you might want to follow up.

They have my application and have approved it, and they told me there would be up to 3 months wait to go to school. And if you check posts from deerhunter, wonderman, steveoh1, pronghornracer, they all had to do the same thing I am doing. Are we talking Maverick the flatbed co. out of little rock?

Ya same company and all, I dont know why they made you wait I dont know what to suggest to you except maybe ask them why and let them know that you read on a forum about someone going in on the 6th and see what they tell you.

Re: ANOTHER MAVERICK ?
 

Thanks vonSeggern! Also to those of you being "put off" by Maverick or who may have questions about TMC, you're always welcome to give TMC a second look and PM, email or call me with any questions. Best of luck to you all.
Fred

I worked for Maverick for about 5 months, left for the dream local job that seemed too good to be true and... SURPRISE! It was too good to be true. Needless to say I found that the grass isn't always greener...

I'm still running local, but I'm looking at going back over the road. I will probably go back with Maverick, but I'm re-evaluting everyone now that I know a little more of what it's all about.

Unless things have changed in the past couple of months, Maverick is as good as any company out there. I rank them and TMC at the top of the flatbed world. Melton is a distant 3rd to them, IMO, but no other flatbed outfit is even close.

I'm not sure how deep you are in FL, but a friend of mine lived down there and ran for Maverick and they never seemed to have a problem getting him home. I consistently averaged about 2600-2700 miles, running legal, and when you throw in tarp pay and the occasional extra stop, making $1000 a week really wasn't that difficult. You can't dilly-dally around and expect to make that, but if you're not afraid to work you can make a good living. My thinking was always that if I'm out in a truck away from my family for 5 days, keep me movin and give me the opportunity to make as much money as possible. All truck stops are good for is a place to shower, get a bite to eat and occasionally occupy a parking spot over night.

I also have a good friend there who I talk to recently. He lives in SC and went with the Glass Division when Maverick took that over from Schneider. He basically runs up and down I-95 and frequents south FL. They are running him as much as he can handle and he is pulling in $1200-1300 per week consistently and most of his loads are drop & hook (No Tarping :D ).

As for the waiting list, it is due to a lack of trainers and a huge demand for their training program. Maverick requires more experience to become a trainer than most companies, hence a shortage of qualified applicants. If you get the CDL on your own you will get into orientation much faster.

Best of Luck!

Redsfan,

Just curious what you dont like about your local job. I did the same and feel like you but not ready to go back out there just yet.

1) The hours suck, I never have a set schedule. One day I may work from 4 AM til 10 PM (yes, I know that's 18 hours...) and the next I may not start until 2 PM and be done at 8 PM. Honestly I got much more sleep when I was OTR. I really don't see my family much more now than I did when I was OTR. They are usually in bed when I get home. I was supposed to be starting at 4 or 5 AM and being done by 4 or 5 PM every day.

2) The money is not nearly as good. I knew it would be less, but most weeks it's not nearly as much as I was told that it would be.

3) I am always running illegal. I'm always either overweight or out of hours or both. I hate that, I don't know how all the cowboys out there can stand to run that way.

I know it sounds like I'm whining, but I've talked to my boss numerous times and he keeps promising changes, but it's become obvious that nothing's going to change so I have to do it on my own. I've talked to several companies this week and I will probably go back to Maverick (should not have ever left), but I wanted to explore all options. I'd love to be home every night, not at this trade-off.

I live around the pensacola,fl area, I know that I wont be home on the weekends but thats okay I already expected that, and since you already worked for maverick how is there equipment?

Sounds about like me. I've tried a couple of local outfits. First one, hauling milk. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Forget logs, there's no way you can do it legal. Just make up a bunch of crap and turn it in. Every load was overweight and all the equipment was a DOT inspection waiting to be placed out of service. Company policy was always bypass every scale. Second job was getting paid by the load, hauling a rock bucket. God almighty, I have never seen so many DOT's waiting to shut us down. I had no idea the DOT had it in for rock buckets. In four years of driving I got pulled over more times in three weeks than in all the time than I'd spent doing anything else. The DOT hates us. Just last week I got fined $430 for 2,000lbs over on the trailer axles (my fault, really), and a bald trailer tire. I told the company repeatedly about those sh*tty rear tires and they simply will not replace them. I get to pay for it out of pocket. Get up at 2am, get home at 8pm. The earliest I ever got up while running for TMC was 3:30am. One time, that's it. I swear I got far more sleep running OTR than local. Plus, more predictable schedules, better equipment, and if I had a problem with illegal equipment, it was taken care of immediately. I don't know. I'd love to run local, but unless it's LTL with a really good company, it seems OTR is far better. Especially flatbed where you can get home every weekend and safety actually exists. :evil:

The equipment is great! Freightliner Columbias, none more than a couple of years old. They turn them back in at 300-350K miles, so even if you got an '04 or '05, you probably won't be in it for long.

A lot of people bash on Freightliners, but I'll tell you what if I'm gonna be living in my truck I definitely want a FL. Where I work now, we have '05 & '06 Kenworth T800's and Pete 379's, both with CAT C-15's. IMO, they don't hold a candle to a Columbia. That's just my opinion and others will disagree, but for driver comfort Columbias can't be beat. What I don't get is why everyone calls Freightliners "Freight-shakers"? Anyone who has driven a Pete 379 knows that they ride like a dump truck and beat the crap out of you. Columbias ride much smoother and I've yet to see any more power with the C-15 over the Detroit. My biggest pet peeve with the KW's is that you can sit in the drivers seat and almost reach out the passenger window to adjust the mirror. I get claustrphobic in those damn things...

One other thing, Maverick is going to all automatics. I hated the idea when I first heard it, but my last truck with them was an auto and I miss the hell out of that. You can't beat it when you're in stop and go traffic. Anyone who drove one for a week would never want to go back to shifting.

As for Pensacola, that's not bad. Don't be surprised if they actually do get you home on weekends. The buddy of mine lives in Gainesville and he seems to get home every weekend.

Good luck!

Yep, that's the same boat I'm in. I haul a lot of grain and feed ingredients in a hopper. I've also run a fair amount of dry van. It's not so bad on the backhaul because most of our vendors won't load you over 80K, but on the front end, if the boss loads it you can bet that I'll be 95-100K.

I know a lot of guys that run rock buckets and you're dead-on with that. A buddy told me when I was getting my CDL that if he ever saw me driving a rock bucket, he was going to smack me for the same reasons that you stated.

I'm definitely going back out, but once I found out how cush dry van drivers have it I may not go flatbed if I find a decent dry van company. I'll probably end up right back where I started though, with Maverick, because it's hard to find anyone else who measures up.

hauling sod.....
 

Is it common for Maverick to haul sod? I thought it was kind of odd myself, unless maybe it was a different type of grass going to a golf course or baseball stadium somewhere. Today while out i saw a Maverick truck hauling pallets of sod, i believe it was 16 total. they were not tarped per say but did have a sheet of black plastic on the top of all of the pallets and then strapped. This was in Memphis going east on I-40.

All this from "Mr Safety"? What a hypocrite. :D Gee, no one ever fined me. And they hate steel haulers as much as you bucket drivers. Of course, I never gave them a reason to. 8)

Tell me snowball, after spending too much time OTR you take that "dream" local job only to find out it's far worse than any OTR job you could imagine. What do you do? Do you moan and groan and refuse loads until you're fired or do you just get fed up with it and quit? I don't like quitting jobs, but I hate getting fired even more. What's your solution? As far as being over on the trailer tandems, that's not a safety issue, it's a money maker, either for me if I get away with it, or for them if they catch me. How 'bout it supertrucker? What's your honest opinion on the matter?

Driver, my honest opinion? You gotta do what you gotta do. A man's gotta eat. I'm only picking on you because you started in on me. We're all in this together, just trying to make a living. As for me I drive for Conway. Great job if you can make it thru the first couple years. Some weeks, like this one, are pretty slow. On call, all different shifts, when you do work alot its crazy hours. Really tests your patience. I think about a better way every day but I cant come up with one yet. For now, I'll keep on pluggin away and if I ever get some seniority this will be a good job. How about a truce now?

Yeah, no problem. All that really matters is that I'm right. :P

Good luck with Conway. I don't think I could do that "on-call" crap. :shock:

Re: hauling sod.....
 

I never hauled sod, never saw anyone else haul it or even heard of Maverick hauling it. With all that being said, I don't doubt you seeing that at all. If the money is right, Maverick will haul anything. I just never experienced it. Was it a Maverick truck or a MAV-IC truck? I know the MAV-IC trucks will haul some loads that you'll probably never see a Maverick truck hauling.

Primarily we hauled steel (coils, bars, sheets, etc.), and building products (lumber, drywall, shingles, etc.), but you would get an unusual load from time to time. I hauled a load of burnt rice hulls one time from AR to Detroit. Skids of bags double-stacked and extremely light. Easy loading, securing and unloading, but the consignee was the biggest pain that I ever dealt with. They were a glass plant that apparently uses the burnt hulls to cool the glass. Being in Detroit at all is bad enough, but being there for 5 hours plain sucked. That was one of only 2 times that I ever had to collect detention pay with Maverick.

ill probably seeing you there smb. I am starting this weekend and will be back in little rock on nov 6th for orientation.

Stevedb28 I moved to the 16th instead so we might run in to each other there. When are you going?

Well October 16th not November.

the 16th myself. Was due to go this last week but couldnt locate my birth certificate

Cool see you there!

A distant 3rd? LOL.. That is too funny!
I don't knock other companies, in this case, either you have your facts mixed up, maybe it's just your personal opinion.
Enough said....
Charles

PS: Maybe people could check out http://www.safersys.org on each of the companies listed safety records.
Stats from safersys
Melton 1 fatality, and 36 injured in the last 2 yrs
TMC 10 fatalities, and 76 injuries in the last 2 yrs
Maverick 7 fatalities, and 44 injuries in the last 2 yrs

This is a matter of public record courtesy of the FMCSA. TMC being the larger of the three companies.

Have a great day!!
Again..............Charles