Switching Trucking Companies

Good luck Eckoh! I know the general feeling by the moderators is to stay with your first company for a year, but I don't regret leaving Roehl to go to Marten. Things are far from perfect especially since this is a newly acquired account and the bugs aren't worked out yet, but I am much happier here. I too will be interested to hear how things go with Crete/Scheafer. Are you going dry van or reefer?

Crete is dry van and scheafer is reefer

Good luck Eckoh! I know the general feeling by the moderators is to stay with your first company for a year, but I don't regret leaving Roehl to go to Marten. Things are far from perfect especially since this is a newly acquired account and the bugs aren't worked out yet, but I am much happier here. I too will be interested to hear how things go with Crete/Scheafer. Are you going dry van or reefer?

Crete is dry van and scheafer is reefer

Yep, I know that but was curious if Eckoh is going to pull dry van or reefer, that's all.

Good luck Eckoh! I know the general feeling by the moderators is to stay with your first company for a year, but I don't regret leaving Roehl to go to Marten. Things are far from perfect especially since this is a newly acquired account and the bugs aren't worked out yet, but I am much happier here. I too will be interested to hear how things go with Crete/Scheafer. Are you going dry van or reefer?

starting in dry van... if i find i do more live loads then drops i will go reffer...

I wanted to stay with swift for the first full year, but they did some things that make it hard for me to keep working for them with how they handle things. As well as screwing my pay for the next year with their "driver ranking" that they do.

That along with what is already coming from the drivecam, i cannot stay with them. Hell they have already fired 5 drivers for what has been reported from drivecam, and its things from when it WAS NOT supposed to be recording. Their big thing is caning drivers who back without a seatbelt on after they get their paperwork at a shipper. I know many people who back without a seatbelt just so they can turn and look without it chocking them. Their actions with drivecam already are showing they are using as a spy system.

Can you explain what Swifts "driver ranking" is?

Eckoh, where did you get this information? Did it all happen to you or someone you know? I drive for Swift and haven't heard anything like this.

I don't have a camera yet, but I unhitch the belt, like you say, so I can watch my backing.

Can you explain what Swifts "driver ranking" is?

Basically the way to look at it is a way for swift to keep from paying you.

They have bronze Silver Gold Platinum and Diamond. The rankings are based on being on time accident free and miles run. Each level gets you higher pay on a "bonus check"

Basically doing your job gets you your top pay and for ANY reason they deside to put a service failure on you or a preventable accident they will dump your driver rank for 1 year.

For me the trailer door was ripped off the side of my trailer last winter due to win and rust on the trailer. It was an equipment failure as the steel hook that you put the chain on ripped out of the trailer, they desided that it was my fault that the wind broke a rusted trailer i was forced to pick up. So they basically are going to dock me 6 cents per mile for the next year.

If it was my fault for the door braking because i did not do something that fine its on me, but it wasn't and they messed up my pay... I followed all their paperwork to appeal it and it sat on the safety guys desk so long its now too long to change it. So i cannot work for a company that screws its drivers over like that. I went all the way to the main terminal in Phoenix to talk to the head of safety and he said it was BS but because the paperwork was not processed its now too late.

Sift does EVERYTHING they can to try to an not pay their drivers. I was sent a preplan last night that had 6 different things you had to do or they would not pay for any of the run and that particular home depot is known in the fleet to not do the paperwork right and cause drivers to not get payed.

I have a few friends left at swift that have had no issues what so ever, however out of the 12 people i hung out with when i was at their academy 4 including me still work for them. One of the things Swift does is they run each terminal like its a different trucking company, with their own rules and procedures and there are "feuds" between several terminals so you get treated different at certain terminals. For instance unless you are from Texas you are not allowed to take an empty out of the Lancaster Tx terminal and if you go in with and empty they will take it from you and make you bobtail out.

Now i do not know all the problems others have had i can only speak on my experiance. However i do know that swift pads their driver turnover rate and claim its at 80% when in reality its over 100% each year... and that is saying something for a company that has over 25000 drivers.

Like i said the company works for some people, it worked for me for quite a while i was running hard and getting more then 3000 miles a week until i started to fight the bogus preventable and then my miles dropped to under 2000 a week until they saw that i applied to crete and then boom my miles skyrocketed until i put in my notice now i am sitting with the claim of "no freight" in a terminal that has no room in it because of all the loaded trailers they have.

Eckoh, where did you get this information? Did it all happen to you or someone you know? I drive for Swift and haven't heard anything like this.

I don't have a camera yet, but I unhitch the belt, like you say, so I can watch my backing.

I know one guy that got a "safety" warning for not having his belt on inside of customer yards and guys he knows have been fired for it.

The cams are set so that SLOWLY going over a speed bump turns the cam on, you hit rough road in contruction the cam comes on... basically if you get enough vibration from a good solid fart the cam comes on. It does not live stream but its the next best thing to it and they are turning the cams on to "spot check" drivers and starting to lean to the cams as being a "coaching" tool...

I'm not in your shoes, but if I were I'd try talking to someone in safety and/or my driver manager about my situation. It doesn't seem like they'd want to lose a driver because the wind tore the door off an old rusty trailer. Good luck.

I was sent a preplan last night that had 6 different things you had to do or they would not pay for any of the run ...

Nearly any "JIT" (Just In Time) load has those requirements. I haven't had any problem with those or any other requirement listed in the Qualcomm dispatch. I've been paid fully for every load from Swift.

Did you notice you get paid on Tuesday for loads you file by the previous Thursday (4 days before payday)?

For instance unless you are from Texas you are not allowed to take an empty out of the Lancaster Tx terminal and if you go in with and empty they will take it from you and make you bobtail out.

I'm based in Memphis. Been to Lancaster twice. Never had a problem with my empty, including leaving it in the yard so I could bobtail to Walmart.

Don't think I'm some fan of Swift. That's just the company that hired me five months ago. I talked to US Xpress, but really I haven't found a reason to switch.