Profile For Joe

Also, it's less expensive to "deck out" a smaller fleet than a large one, and being as idling laws are stringent, and the sun isn't getting any cooler, an APU is more cost effective and driver friendly

Keep in mind, they are out there to make money. Not solely on your comfort. A good sized sleeper and a mattress is all that they will want to provide. Not APU, or fridges, inverters so on so forth. Maintenance wise on larger fleets for an APU can severely damaged a companies income. To include the small amount of fuel a night that makes it operate. Small amount is about 5 gallons, being heavy on my estimate. But figure 5 gallons/truck at 2.50/gallon, fleet has 100 trucks, that's over $1,000/day, not making them money/keeping the business running. Now you do the math for 180 days at 1,000. That's 180,000 dollars loss. That's only for about half of a year. Now figure in each truck needs to have them maintained regularly, and the times that unit goes down. APU is nice to have yes but this is an industry that is switching to automatics because of an average 2-5mpg increase in fuel economy. I worked from pizza delivery to Alaskan oil fields to construction to security to a Kenworth mechanic to helping manage my friends pool hall over with various odd jobs over the past two years I've been out.

APU was a big goal on my list. I've even considered buying one and having it installed but that's $1000 for a quality one. Then I started to do the math and understood the business aspect. No business=no job/that many people now out of work. I just got my CDL two months ago, started at Watkins and Shepard a week later, waited couple extra days in order to get my forklift certification. After my 10 day orientation, and they gave me my keys to my 13 Volvo 670 said here you go. No APU, but some of the newer trucks are coming with fridges, they don't have inverters, but if you buy one (up to 2000w) the shop will install it at no cost to you. They prefer you not to idle, but they know you need the AC/heat in order to sleep. Where you can be shut down for the day if you're driving fatigued.

Hopefully this can help you out a little bit

One of my biggest tickets to the company I'm currently with, Watkins and Shepard, is they don't have x amount of weeks or months with a trainer over the road, they have a two week orientation and that's all. Unless (not saying you or anybody in the future reading this) you don't feel competent to operate a truck safely where they will provide more training.

Just to add to this portion, I don't enjoy people. Simple conversation once in a while is nice but to sit in a truck with someone I don't know, for weeks on end not knowing if they have home time or an extended vacation coming up, or them being the type of person who is such an arrogant jerk that you're ready to fight after just a couple of days. Just not my cup of tea

Greenhorn welcome. Edgewood huh? Spent my 4 month AIT on APG-Edgewood to be a wheeled mechanic with the Stryker ASI. Only did 4 years freezing my butt off on ft wainwright, Alaska. Still trying to defrost and I've been back since April.

I've done same thing you are doing. Searched nation wide for a private school that seemed like a good fit for what I was looking for. Looked into most companies from websites, forums, discussion boards, going to truck stops to ask drivers questions about that company. Plus looking up their FMCSA scores (safersys.org go to the bottom where it says FMCSA searches and click on the company snapshot, you'll be able to search DOT#, company name. After you search that on the right hand side you'll have another hyper link saying SMS results. Hope this can help you out). Took me 6 months to follow through with everything. Like you, I put swift and Werner on the back burner, but that was after I looked into them, just something about them didn't feel appealing. C.R. England I counted out only because they were not in the system which I was basing all of the scores off of, to include their DOT number which I had to call and get transferred through 6 people to get, still nowhere to be found. One of my biggest tickets to the company I'm currently with, Watkins and Shepard, is they don't have x amount of weeks or months with a trainer over the road, they have a two week orientation and that's all. Unless (not saying you or anybody in the future reading this) you don't feel competent to operate a truck safely where they will provide more training.

But you name it I probably looked into them even if it was for 30 minutes online, something through me off of them for some reason or another, like not allowing an inverter, no fridges, just basic comfort type stuff.

APU seem to be few and far between for medium to large OTR companies, maybe more experienced drivers here can give you more on that. "Not cost effective" as most companies will say. But I know Knight, Watkins and Shepard, Gordon, May, Marten, CR England, not sure about Northern, Western, or Western Express haven't talked with many of them yet, don't run them. But I did see one company in Oregon running one but cannot recall who

Sorry about your luck driver. Can't say much good about my Volvo. (PACCAR) but one good thing is that the locks don't activate if your door is open. Can only be locked through the door handle joystick looking thing, while the door is closed, so you either need to be in the truck, window has to be down, or have to use your key from the outside. Or if you have a common truck, the Volvo 670, Peterbilt 579/589, Kenworth T660/680, freightliner Cascadia, they only make certain amount of key designs. Could get lucky and find a truck same model and close to same year and be the same key

Hopefully this time my laptop doesn't want to randomly refresh as I'm trying to post.

I don't spend a lot of time trying to point people in the direction of any single company, but want folks to realize that it is not that critical of a decision as a rookie driver. What is critical is your approach to the job. I can say this with some authority since I ran my first sixteen months of my career with Western Express, a company that has some of the absolutely worst internet reviews you could possibly find on any trucking company. They kept me moving and I made some good money with them. I loved my time there and still would be there had I not gotten a significantly better offer from Knight Transportation to run in their small dedicated flat-bed fleet. The truth about driving a truck is that it is a performance based job. No matter what company you choose, your success will boil down to whether or not you can out perform the average driver out there.

Here's how you apply critical thinking to this process: Think about your statement quoted above. I know you have your reasons for not liking Wal-Mart, and it would be useless for us to debate that here, but usually the reasons people give for not liking Wal-Mart have to do with the things they have done so that they could position themselves as a company where you can get just about anything you need at a very reasonable price. And they have been very successful with that business plan. People love them when they can go get a 60 inch flat-screen Television for 299.00, but then they hate them because they are only allowing their employees to work 34 hours a week, or a host of other cost cutting reasons. Like I said, I don't want to debate the merits of Wal-Mart, but to dismiss their trucking company because you don't think too highly of the company is taking one of the best and highest paying trucking jobs right off the top of your list. That is a trucking job that a lot of folks would love to have.

Now let's look at what you said about Schneider. Again I understand your reason given for taking them off your list, but once again you have taken one of the highest paying opportunities off your list. Dedicated jobs are really some great paying jobs, and an additional benefit to them is that they take much of the stress that wears on a new person to the industry out of the equation. You have the chance to get familiar with all your customers in a region. The most stressful thing about starting this career is finding your way in and out of your shippers and receivers at point A and B. You'll see what I mean when you get out there. Those are the critical parts of each trip and they are usually the points where a rookie will make a big mistake.

Now let's move on to Swift. You simply can't take the negative things you've heard about these companies and give it a lot of weight in your decisions, even if it comes form your friends. Think about this - Swift is one of the largest players in the game. Do you have any idea how many "Million Milers" they have on their long list of successful drivers? Well, it's a loooong list. None of those folks ever complain about not getting the miles - and why not? Because they are the top performers. Well here we are full circle, back to that word performance. If you can focus on that element to you will do really well at this career, even if you have to get started at Western Express or any place else that has a lot of critics.

For Walmart, Yes I do have a problem with them, I do not support the company and have not set foot in one in almost two years. The trucking portion might be absolutely amazing, but as a company in a whole, I just won't be able to do it.

Schneider, amazing company, Vet Friendly, with Freightliner adding to the evidence with their Ride of Pride trucks. I considered applying with them, however I'm just not wishing to be in a dedicated route right now. Maybe in the near future, but I'd just love to experience traveling through 48 states and get paid for it if I can. Not to mention, I just up and moved from Alaska, plans didn't pan out for me like how everything was intended to go so I'm stuck with a small car and some cloths, so, home time is definitely not important to me right now.

Swift, not solely on word of mouth, it does influence my decision yes but not to the point of they are completely out. I've looked at their website, called their recruiters and just isn't appealing to me as others.

I do apologize for my initial post as I wasn't as clear as I should of been. I was wanting to know experiences with management, how they would act to their drivers, how they handle a situation with the equipment.

You've compiled a good list there.

I've been looking for the past 6 months into companies alone, 3 months for a school.

So far only three that are completely out of the picture are Swift (know more friends who have driven and had nothing but bad experiences they didn't give they the miles/messed up on their tuition), Wal-Mart (not a big fan with the company itself) and Schneider (only due to the fact that they dont have OTR only dedicated for my area which I'm just getting myself resettled in the lower 48 and with no family other than parents, no reason to not stay on the road)

Knight is about 90% auto as of two day ago, with 6 KW 660's to their million milers.

I've been talking with recruiters from May Trucking Co, Gordon Trucking Inc, Watkins & Sheperd, Knight Trans, and multiple others. So far W/S is the top of my list after talking to Mr. Tracy. But I was curious if anybody has driven for any of the others and just curious on their experience with the company itself. I am getting my license within the next couple of weeks through a private school, so it's kind of coming down to the wire.

And I know of W/S and Knight going to automatic's, are the larger companies making that switch?

So far, my top ideas are May Trucking Company, Gordon Trucking Inc, and Knight Trans. Still doing research on 10 others that I just haven't looked much into lately. Just recently started looking into Watkins & Shepard and thought you might be able to assist me through this journey.

My plan is moving to Denver and attending a private schooling not company sponsored. I figured I could get more knowledge to be a safer driver with more time behind the wheel and in the classroom.

Joe

Joe,

I'd be glad to help. Email me and we will either set up a call or exchange a few emails on it. We have a terminal in Denver...and 19 other places. We are on a big push to get drivers and can get you behind the wheel pretty fast if you have a CDL.

Tracy

Shot you a message, I'm unsure on how to read them to be honest. Hope to receive an email soon.

Good morning everybody.

I am just trying to get as much feedback as possible from companies, how they like them, what the negatives are, pay, benefits are huge for me, how the equipment is, whether it's forced dispatch or not, whole nine yards. (not worried about D&H or having to load/unload)

I am looking into moving down to the lower 48 from Alaska, going down with basically nothing but family, cloths on my back and my pool cues. Trying to find a company who is willing to keep me rolling for months at a time.

So far, my top ideas are May Trucking Company, Gordon Trucking Inc, and Knight Trans. Still doing research on 10 others that I just haven't looked much into lately. Just recently started looking into Watkins & Shepard and thought you might be able to assist me through this journey.

My plan is moving to Denver and attending a private schooling not company sponsored. I figured I could get more knowledge to be a safer driver with more time behind the wheel and in the classroom.

Have a good one

Joe