Carter Express .... My New Home

For any of you that may have read my other posts, I have just completed the truck school SAGE in Muncie, Indiana paid for completely by Carter Express out of Anderson, Indiana. I go in for orientation at Carter tomorrow morning at 7am. Orientation lasts for 1 week and then 4 weeks of training with drivers.

I'll keep you guys posted on my life as a new driver with Carter Express. So far everything sounds and seems amazing.

 

I think the 4 weeks is for those that have gone through the schooling program, but son't quote me on it. My brother is a trainer and he also told me 4 weeks.

 

Today was day 1 of orientation. It started at 7am. From 7 until 11 everyone had to get another physical, drug testing, copies of paperwork, etc. There are 10 people in our orientation class. I guess normally there isn't that many. Towards the middle of this time they started playing the safety videos while we were taking turns finishing our physicals and such.

Training Schedule: For the experienced drivers, I think they had a few days of orientation and then off to their terminals. Easy peasy. For the trainees (the ones that went through the schooling), we have orientation Monday - most of Wednesday. Thursday and Friday we will be on the Carter Express drive range. Then, all of week 2 will be on the driver range. Week 3 and week 4 will be with a local/regional trainer so I'm assuming that we will be home every night. Week 5 and week 6 we will be with an OTR trainer and assuming we will be home 2 or 3 nights a week, plus the weekends. Week 7 we are on our own!

They bought Papa Johns today for everyone and tomorrow is Lee's Chicken. I think they buy lunch all week.

The experienced drivers that came up here told me they are staying in the Best Western a couple miles away. One guy has been with other company's and said this is by far the nicest hotel he has ever been to from a trucking company. They said they are also given $20 a day to help cover their dinner. I guess the Best Western has a full breakfast buffet for free.

During the afternoon we went over e-logs. It was easy but non of our logins worked so it took extra time. Then we went over fuel and HR.

We have $1,000 open to us a day for fuel, $50 of which is for additives such as additives, oil, idleair, etc. They can give us more if we need it 4 hours a day. Speaking of idleair, I was shocked that they pay for it! The fuel cards cover Flying J, Pilot and Loves. They said if we are in a situation they can open the card of off network approval. They also have about 40 non network truck stops that these cards work at. These are based on many of our normal runs that may not have an in-network TS near for scales, fuel, etc.

Payroll: We get paid $350 for orientation that will be paid next Friday via direct deposit or paper check. Then, they hold back 2 weeks. It make sense when they explained it. If I drive this week, next week they put together payroll then submit it to us drivers to make sure it is correct. Maybe they forgot to add detention pay or break down pay, etc. We issue them the corrections, they verify it during the following week and we have our money by that Friday. Make sense? Sorry if I didn't explain it well.

Insurance: It's pretty sweet. Too much for me to type up here. You have to wait 6 months to get insurance, but they are thinking about changing that in September to be eligible for insurance after 60 days.

401K: Available on day 1. This is great! You can change your contributions weekly. The company matches 100% of the first 2% and 50% of the next 2%. So, if I contribute 2% of my income towards my 401K, Carter will match that with 2%. If I contribute 3% they will match at 2.5% and if I contribute 4% they will match at 3%. That's where the matching stops. I started at 4% because I want that free money.

Vacations: 1 week of vacation after 1 year and 2 weeks after 3 years.

There are 2 driver holidays paid out at $125 each. Christmas Day and Thansgiving Day.

There are bonus programs such as performance, safety, fuel, idle, etc.

We get discounts at GM, Chrysler and Nissan, SEVERAL local banks and credit unions, local gyms and Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. There are also sweet deals at the zoo, rental cars and other things.

That's all that I can think of for now. Let me know if any of you have any questions.

 

I don't believe any of them have APU's or inverters, but if you buy your own inverter, they install it for you.

I have another thread about SAGE. It was great. From all the other schools that I have read about, SAGE is probably the best. 2 weeks in the classroom and 8 drive days, I believe. On the drive range and when driving on the road it is all 1 on 1. You can't get any better. Total time at the school should be 3 - 5 weeks, but week 3 on is only one or two days a week driving, no class time.

The equipment is old, but it does the trick. It is all approved by the state of Indiana because they do CDL testing there for Indiana as well with the same trucks. I don't know about any problems and not sure why she would say that. They have I think 3 trucks so 2 are always up on going.

Yes, the city is expanding the street in front of the school. They should allow people back to that entrance within the next day or two.

My first week class was 3 people, second week was 5 people and after that was 1 on 1 on the drive range.

No one was sent home. SAGE doesn't do what some of these other schools go.

 

I will start at 32.5cpm. I've been told that after your 1 year, if you've kept your cdl clean, you can demand a huge raise and get it as they have a whole team dedicated to the retention of good drivers. I don't know how true that is, but that's the rumor.

I'll see if I can get more straight answers about taking the trucks home. Like I said, I know several people that do, but they all live in Anderson.