Need the benefit of your experience
 

I would like to find a company that has the following attributes:

Most Important!!

Home Time: At least home every other weekend In town friday or saturday, back out MONDAY AM. More often, (every weekend) would be even better

AND

Running area: Prefer to run regional in the "Midwest" or "North Central" states. I would like to find a company that thinks Pennsylvania is the northernmost and easternmost state in the union. Also, would like to get through Nebraska from time to time, to see my son who plays baseball and attends the University of Nebraska-Kearney.

The rest in no particular order of importance.

Dry Van

Clean, newer truck Partial to auto-shift, but not a deal killer.

Roomy sleeper space

ALL Tolls Paid and Pre-Pass

Pay on practical miles

Milwaukee, or SE Wisconsin terminal or dropyard

A company that insists on running legal at all times.

Idle, safety, and other bonus possibilities

I live in the Milwaukee WI area and have 14 months OTR experience. I have been off the road for a year. If I could find a company with all of these fine qualities, great! If I can get a majority, fine. Please give me all of your recommendations and I will sift through them. Thanks, and be safe.

I would check into Crete. They are a fine company. They have an outstanding Midwest Regional. Never went into Pennsylvania while on it. Did alot of Ohio, IN, KY, TN, IL, MI. They also have a dedicated WalMart account out of Illinois.

Look into Knight and PTL.

Roehl has a midwest regional with a drop yard in Oak Creek .

Yep they sure do, right behind the flin' hook.

After I got my CDL I went to work for Roehl, I got my 1 year experience and came to work for Crete. They are a much better co. IMO

For what you want though as far as hometime, I'd check out Roehl's 7/7 or 7/3, 7/4 program. Roehl's hometime fleets get treated better then their national fleet (they get waaaay more drop 'n hooks) so thats my 2 cents.

:o Give KOCH a try, been with them for 3 months, I run out of Lawrence KS, reginnal, home every Friday, I run out Sunday afternoon, (my chioce) I could run early Monday morning, benifits and 401K are good, everytime I need someone to talk with, they have the answers.... We have drivers out of Milwalkee....
One company is much like another, it's the drivers who make the difference.
Good luck. 8)

Prodigy wrote



Prodigy, what would the hometime with Crete be like for someone in my part of the country? 7/7 7/3 7/4 doesn't sound like substantial $.

If you ran the midwest regional fleet you would be able to get home most every weekend if you chose to. However Crete dropped their entire bonus sysytem last year in lieu of a .03/mile pay increase. The closest terminal to you would be Ottawa Il, unless you wanted to run on the Walmart fleet out of Sterling, Il. Crete does not provide prepass unless you want to pay the $15/month yourself.

What Karnajj said about the midwest regional is true. I wouldn't want to deal with the WM Sterling account either, unless you enjoy Chicago Traffic. Crete like most other larger companies consider a weekend half of Saturday and you leave out super early on monday, I'm not a morning person so that would suck for me. Crete's national fleet is one day of hometime for every six out. When I was a company driver I squeezed more out of them but I certainly wasn't my fleet mgr's favorite driver because of that.

BTW you could get through Kearney with Crete, I've delivered to Menard's there a couple of times.

Gordon has a midwest Regional

HO Wolding, Deboer are other options.