Profile For Christopher G.

No i have never worked at swift, nor did i give any indication that i had ever been employed with their company. I do not have any experience working for swift but i know of their reputation. all companies have one, sometimes the reputation is good other times its not good. and unless youre an owner op or lease you will be driving a truck and trailer with your company's name and logo plastered on it so its that logo and name that everyone will see. Whether its the truck rolling down the highway looking good centered in the lane not weaving or in the ditch on the side of the road, its the drivers action that determines the companies reputation and every driver is either improving that or reducing it for his or her respective company. So hopefully you're improving the image for your respective company and kudos to you if you are.

However since you do work there im assuming, what do you recommend about your company and why would it be ideal for someone new starting out in this industry? whats their stance on weather? average haul length? freight lanes? gps navigation equipped trucks? - if equipped how are the gps units configured? fastest route or shortest route ? - example fastest route traveling on interstate mainly for a longer distance vs cutting through towns on highways for a shorter distance haul apu/inverter? customers they deliver to? who unloads the truck ? driver unload, no touch, lumper unload ? where are the operation centers located? are they forced dispatch ? what do you dislike about your company ? what could management do better ? do you see yourself being there for an extended period of time ? how safe is your company as a whole? are you regional, local, dedicated, or otr and can you change between them easily if you lifestyle changes? what happens if you get sick on the road and does that count against you ?

those are important issues that new drivers should know for any company.

and my company isn't really all that special, its a mega carrier, one of the safest though ill add. which is why i chose them based on their safety record since i wanted a company i knew id have safe equipment and operated in a safe and legal manner so i wouldnt rack up any csa points starting out. and i've done just that no inspections, my truck goes through the scales generally only when they dont have a prepass site and thats as far as it ever goes. so thats why i chose my company for their safety record since if you have to pay out money in fines doing your job that defeats the purpose of doing the job in my opinion. so that's why i chose my company i got my cdl through a private school and had no contracts to sign so safety was my main concern when choosing a company to sign with and its paid out pretty handsomely thus far.

I didnt know sharing ones opinion on a company is bashing it. i never said "absolutely avoid swift at all cost for your life depends on it." now that would be bashing. i said that personally id choose not to go with swift for the above reasons. primarily for the guy i saw get put out at the truckstop in person who was in fact a swift driver and for that youtube link listed above about a driver with a similar situation who was also swift driver. and i also noted at the bottom of the post that if swift is your foot in the door to the industry then by all means take it and use the time your there to learn the industry and gain experience but if there were other companies i personally would choose the other options. That's not bashing that's giving an opinion and if it was bashing i wouldn't have added that if its the posters only way into the industry to take take the opportunity. Someone else could post that swift is the best company they've ever worked for and that also is their opinion. it could be true or faux, its simply ones opinion on a given subject matter, just like your opinion of considering the post to be bashing on swift.

Hello all, as the title suggests I'm looking at companies for my next move. That will not be in the near future however but possibly 5 to 6 months from now. I have nearly 8 months experience as of now and I'm planning to be at my current company until at least the one year mark, primarily since it adds employment prospects and there's a one week paid vacation after the one year mark.

I'm currently doing dry van freight over the road in a sleeper pulling 53ft trailers. However I took over the road to mean long haul. As in decent haul lengths, sadly the company I'm at has in my experience an average haul length of about 350 to 400 miles at the best. Which equals out to be a lot of short runs in general which wouldn't be that bad if they were all drop and hook or the vast majority were to be drop and hook I wouldn't mind it so much. They're mainly live loads of say maybe 70 to 85% its fairly rare to get a actual drop and hook load which I take to mean you either bobtail to the shipper or with an empty drop it at the shipper and pick up a loaded trailer at the shipper. At my current company its usually a live load and unload at a specific time or pick up a preloaded trailer and do a live unload. Loading and unloading kills your time generally in my experience on loading has taken anywhere from about 30 minutes to as long as 6 hours but the average being 1 to 2 hours and same for unloads normally. Trucks are governed between 60 and about 65 but most are spec'd to around 61 to 63. So there isn't a lot of speeding I can do to make up for the time lost during loading and unloading. The average load weighs 38 to 40k pounds. I'm currently hauling one weighing 44,500 pounds grossing just under 78,500 total weight. The weight isn't really a major issue for me since I do them all the time really. But light loads do make better time and easier pulling grades so lighter loads are always welcome.

My current truck is a 2012 mid roof freightliner cascadia with the dd15. It's a nice work truck with emphasis put on the work part. It has the idle shutdown crap that automatically cuts the truck off if it idles more than 5 minutes while its less than 80 degrees. Since I started in the summer it didn't really bother me a lot due to the weather being above 80 almost always. It doesn't have an apu or even an epu so its only non idle power is drawn out of the batteries. Around October and after it got to me waking up to a cold truck, it has a espar heater but you can't run the heater and the truck at the same time and the espar heater takes time to cool down before you can start up the engine otherwise you'll foul up the burn chamber and really have a cold truck and no way to keep it running unless you have it taken in for repair which means less money in your pocket since you're not out running. Since idling the truck isn't allowed in every state an apu would be ideal but one that idles and an apu would be the best since apu's do fail like anything else.

Things i'm looking for in my next company. Firstly the company needs solo long haul freight, average length of haul should be 700 and above ideally. Drop and hook would be preferred but isnt much of an issue really if the miles justify the time lost sitting. I wouldnt doing mind coast to coast runs. I dont mind being out for extended periods of time a month plus is fine as long as you can bank your hometime for when you decide you want to go home and the company actually gets you home when you request to be home. I would prefer to stay away from mega carriers if possible. the truck should be a decent spec'd, a manual kw would be preferred.The truck needs to be able to idle without shutting off or if it does shut off it needs to be equipped to an apu. Prepass / ezpass equipped would be a nice perk. the ideal company should have a good to great fmcsa score since that ultimately determines your likely hood to get pulled by dot and inspected a good safety score is paramount. i don't have any citations, tickets or any fines or indictments against me and i intend to keep it that way.

I realize that no company is perfect and each one has it flaws and downsides but some certainly have more than others so i understand that probably very few if any companies will fit what i'm looking for completely but the company should fit most of the characteristics i'm looking for to be considered. I'm posting this now to have ample time to review the suggestions so ill be able to weigh all the pros and cons of any suggested companies.

Thanks for the help in advance.