| Hunt Transportation DAC OK, so you wanna know about Hunt Transportation, eh? First, you need to know that Hunt is NOT a division of Crete Carrier Corporation (both are owned by Acklie, and they have different DOT numbers, and they can NOT pull each other’s trailers). However, a lot of the policies that Crete comes up with get pushed on Hunt also, so sometimes it feels like Hunt is a division of Crete…
Having said that, some of the below might apply to Crete Carrier Corporation, but this is my review of Hunt Transportation:
Two reasons you might not want to work at Hunt Transportation:
1)Hometime (what hometime?)
2)Medical Insurance (what medical insurance?)
There are several others, but those are the biggies.
There is no formal hometime policy at Hunt Transportation (in spite of what you might read on a web site somewhere). The informal hometime policy is as follows:
5 days or more at home is considered vacation, and vacation is only available after a year of employment. There is NO “banking” of hometime. That is, you can’t request extra days of hometime because you’ve been on the road for several months (if you were). You’ll be lucky to get 4 days of hometime after being on the road for 6-8 weeks. (and they’ll give you the attitude that they are doing you a huge favor, by giving you four days)
Now on Medical Insurance:
Blue Cross/Blue Shield is a GREAT insurance company. Unfortunately, there are an infinite number of plans available from BCBS, and the one that is offered through Hunt Transportation is truly terrible. A family would have to pay roughly $7,000 to $9,000 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses before BCBS (Hunt’s version of it) started covering a significant portion of medical claims. Don’t forget the $245 a month in premiums (that’s JUST the health portion of it) before you ever make even ONE doctor’s appointment!!! Then the family deductible (here’s the “gotcha”) runs from 4,000 to 6,000 a year. If you are working as a truck driver, can you afford to pay SEVEN GRAND (or more) a year in medical expenses? While prescription drug coverage is offered, you are forced to fill all prescriptions by mail order. I’m still trying to figure out how to get prescriptions mailed to my tractor at (random address that changes daily). (!) Having prescriptions mailed to your home is not helpful, when you are almost never home.
I have other complaints about Hunt Transportation, but these probably apply to many companies, so I’m not so sure they are significant, but I’ll list them anyway.
Safety. Hunt Transportation goes to both extremes, here. On the one hand, you will frequently be pressured by dispatch to run illegal. On the other hand, the safety department will nit-pick your logs like crazy.
Routing. I’d really like to get a look at the program that figures their routes for them. It is seriously flawed (to be nice). Hunt obviously tries to avoid toll roads where possible, and you can’t blame them for that. Unfortunately, many of the roads suggested (to bypass tolls) are not fit for commercial traffic (even if they were LEGAL for commercial traffic, which they often aren’t). I’m lucky I didn’t rack up some HUGE fines (and maybe points) on my license before I got wise to this situation.
Lies. I caught dispatch in blatant lies, several times. Not sure this is worse than any other trucking company, but my favorite example…
I had one load where dispatch told me it absolutely had to be delivered on Monday morning no later than 10 AM. So I busted my (behind) trying to get the load delivered by early Monday morning. (legally, but I still busted by butt). Halfway there, I call ahead to Consignee to verify directions. Consignee asks me when I’ll be there. Then he informs me that Monday morning won’t work, as they are closed on Mondays. (?!?) But wait! There’s more… So then the consignee asks me what I’m hauling. When I tell him what the load is, the consignee remarks, “Wow, we weren’t expecting THAT until a week from Thursday”. This was the ultra-hot load that had to be delivered by 10AM on Monday, remember?
Timetables truly screwy. Good example… I was once scheduled to drop in Baltimore (shipping ports) starting at 8AM and pick up at Tobyhanna (Pennsylvania) at 11AM the same day. Needless to say, I didn’t make my pickup.
Another problem if you go into Hunt as a rookie…
The training program is extremely challenging, more than it should be. We were working in the hot sun all day (no shade, infrequent breaks), 7 days a week (in training, you will not get Saturday or Sunday off…I barely had time to sleep, eat and keep up with my laundry). I wasn’t used to this, and complained that the over-exposure to the sun was making me ill (because it was). I was almost kicked out of training for complaining about what any reasonable person would consider to be very brutal working conditions. On the subject of training (for inexperienced drivers anyway), it is eight weeks straight, without a break. I heard rumors of a possible break after four weeks, but this was JUST a rumor, unfortunately.
OK, so far I’ve said mostly bad stuff about Hunt Transportation. But they aren’t all bad. If you don’t need medical benefits, then the pay is decent, compared to many companies (especially the ones that will hire rookies!). Miles are good. Not as good as the recruiters say. But if you are willing to work hard, 2800 miles a week on average (some weeks more, some weeks less) is a realistically attainable goal at Hunt. From what I can tell, most of the good loads go to owner/operators, and they seem to have many happy O/Os, so this might be a good company to consider if you want to lease on with someone. On the subject of pay, they seem to be reasonably prompt in processing trip settlements. I got shorted some miles here and there, but nothing terrible. For the most part, miles dispatched are pretty close to what you drive, and pretty close to what you get paid. From what I’ve read anyway, that seems to be better than some companies. OK, any questions on Hunt, feel free to e-mail me if you need to. I won’t pull any punches. I will tell it like it is. (Good, bad or indifferent.) |