To you people who are going with Swift.Best of luck to you,and I really hope you like it there.I did a short stint with them and they are not the place for me to be.They do have some older experienced drivers who have been there a long time.But in all fairness there are so many better companies out there to work for.Good luck.

Apparently you didn't bother to read the very comments with which you say you are in disagreement. The comment on the moron night DMs was of course aimed at those which I had dealt( How could I make an obervation on something I had not observed?).And if you do agree with the second item that you noted then you should have noticed how that comment qualified the afforementioned statement. I'm thinking that maybe you are just a little touchy as a former "moron"(your admission). Hopefully you fit into the category of the latter and not the former statements.

There's a reason why trainers/mentors make more than a solo driver. They are paid for all miles the truck rolls so even though their per mile rate is reduced slightly they still make a killing because they get paid when they are driving, sleeping, etc. as long as the truck is rolling. That is also why many mentors push students into driving while the mentor sleeps before the student is ready. That is both very unsafe and against Swift policy. Swift policy states that the truck should be run as a solo truck for the first two weeks in order for the student to gain SOME experience and confidence.

There's ways of getting that trainer out of the bunk and into the passenger seat to do his job....slam on your brakes and see how fast he makes it to the front of the cab, then say oops.

__________________
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

ha ha, that'll do it

looks like ill be starting there when ever i deicde a start date which will probely be in 2 weeks or so...(when ever i get my tax return back)

ill be training out of Memphis , TN

LOL, I forgot about that, its tax season. Thanks for the reminder, I should probably go through my stack of mail and retrieve my papers so I can do my taxes.

__________________
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Well i leave come monday morning 12:10 am... and i'll be Driving for Swift after i'm done with the school.........

Hope they're good.....cause i'll be contracted for 14 months ~L~

Cloud

I'm am brand new to this forum -- and I like what I've learned so far. In fact I learn quite a bit from those who have ulterior motives in what they say, or to put it another way, thean other than what they are saying. I think you just can't hid the sound or "ring of truth."

Anyway, let me add my very slight heresay about SWIFT.

I'm new to the trucking world, although my brother has been at it for some time. Since my brother has lots of knowledge I ask him a lot of questions. Anther driver told me to steer clear of SWIFT, so I filled that for future reference. Later I asked my brother, he said the same thing. Still later in my search for info, I came upon the OOIDA web site. On one of their pages there is a report about the law suits that are ongoing. SWIFT is being sued by several O/O for several illegal actions on the part of SWIFT, and for constantly trying to cheat the O/O out of agreed upon money.

On the other hand, the only comments I've ever heard about SWIFT that were good came from this forum, and it seems to be in defense. Makes me wonder??????????????????????

Of course, what I am going to type is repetitive.

Swift absolutely has some drivers that have been there for awhile, and who are extremely pleased with them. Every company has some amount of long time employees.

BUT...and this is a big BUT...the chances of a newbie who trains through them achieving the same kind of satisfaction are slim to none. There is no way around that.

They routinely rely upon a majority of inexperienced drivers to keep those trucks filled, and while everyone deserves a chance to start someplace, there are certainly better options than Swift in which to make that start.

By their own admission, they replace drivers in those trucks to amount to what would be equivilent to 1.5 drivers for every one of the trucks the operate with the Swift logo on the side of them. They operate nearly 19,000 trucks.

The truth of the matter is that they probably have more than a 200% turnover rate, which means they are running more than 38,000 drivers in and out of their immense revolving door each year. What person would take a chance on a company with that kind of record?

When a newbie starts out with their first company, they begin amassing a record that will stick with them for ten years. The first six months to a year is VERY important, because if you do not have verifiable references that you have driven a truck, you can't move on to bigger and better things, if Swift turns out to be unbearable, which it most likely will for most people.

So let's say you make it only a month or two before you just have to walk away. You're not going to be looked at seriously by other companies, and you are back at square one all over again, with what can be viewed as a negative on your record. You quit a job within a number of weeks and you are not considered experienced enough to fly by the insurance companies. You're going to have to repeat training someplace.

Added to this, is the immense cost of the training that Swift will have you on the hook for, because you signed an agreement to work for them in exchange for that training. Swift is known for collection tactics that will make you miserable. They will trash your credit standing if you have a decent one. They will incessantly hound you for payments on your debt. And all of this will be reported to anyone considering you for re-training and or hiring. They don't care who they hurt. If you leave them, you are dirt.

Have I experienced this first hand? No. I am from the old school. I grandfathered into all of changes that drivers today have to weather to get in. My information is derived from having spoken to people who have been victim to that crap, reading testimony across the internet for years, and by witnessing their references first hand when I hired drivers.

An experienced driver only fares a little better than a newbie. They are not going to likely be hired right in on the gravy train in a dedicated position where drivers hang with Swift in better numbers unless they are in the right place at the right time, and those hired as road drivers just don't hang there long at a time.

I would be lying if I didn't offer that there are exceptions to all that I offer, because there are. But then, I've never been a gambler, and if I were I wouldn't like betting on long shots. I would go for the best chance of winning.

I wish I had a dollar for every person who did not heed the warnings, and came back to me later and offered that they had wished they listened to me. If I had a dollar for each of those times, I could take a nice, long, and luxurious vacation, for at least a week.

To address one specific, the training facility in Millington, Tennessee is among the worst that Swift has to offer. They will fill a class, and less than 20% will ever make it into the second phase of training. 5% make it into a truck of their own, after they finish raking a driver over the coals in their team-up with another inexperienced driver.

With very few exceptions, the staff there is rude, obnoxious, and they will belittle people to extreme.

And if you haven't already done so, do a little reading on some of the research I have done on that company, at least that portion that can be found online.

[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

Most of the links should still be good.

Swift is a bad egg, and that egg stinks to high heaven.