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  1. #1
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    TMC Transportation, Inc. - Des Moines, Ia.

    From another thread posted in the Forums

    Quote Originally Posted by Cocky
    As far as me leaving TMC: Well I honestly hesitate to post this, but I guess it has to be said sometime or another. TMC is probably a great company for a lot of drivers. Flatbedding aside, they have excellent equipment and great pay to compliment that

    However the expectations that they put on their drivers is far beyond what is humanly and legally possible. Day one in the orientation, and I wsa told that my goal should be to complete five loads a week. Sounds simple, right? It sure did to me.

    Once I got to my trainer, I was told on the first day with him that in order to succeed in this business, I would have to learn how to cheat my logs. Now I did not know any better, so I bit and played along with it. I figured this guy knew a hell of a lot more than me and he was only introducing me to the real world.

    As a result of this practice, I found myself waking up at roughly 6AM and driving and dealing with the load all the way up until 2AM. This would go on everyday. Needless to say I was tired pretty quickly, and it eventually caught up with me.

    The first time it nearly bit me hard was when I was on a scale in Missouri. My trainer was sound asleep in the back, and to make a long story short, I screwed up thus leading the scale operator to think that something was fishy with me. He had me pull over and bring in my logs and all of the other paperwork.

    In my hurry to "fix" my logs, I cut myself one hour short on my break, and was facing an out of service charge. Luckily the DOT man had not seen my trainer's logs yet, so quickly I went out to the truck, woke my trainer, told him the deal, and we "fixed" his logs so that it looked like I just drew a line in the wrong place. I got lucky, but I never should have been in that position.

    The second time I almost got caught was driving on a backroad in Kentucky. I was dead tired, but still had a long ways to go on my load. Unfortunately I nearly fell asleep at the wheel and merged over into the oncoming lane thus running several other motorists off of the road. Eventually the police caught up with me, and pulled me over.

    I woke my trainer again, and he and I were able to BS our way out of an out of service charge once more.


    Now once i got out on my own, I figured things would get better since I could sleep when I wanted to sleep. Unfortunately doing flatbed work with a very large majority of your loads requiring tarps along with the fleet managers griping about your five loads a week deal eventually puts a toll on your body.

    My week would start on Sunday night every night. I would drive to a customer with the load that was on my trailer from the previous Friday and spend the night there. I would wake up in the morning around 6 or 7am, untarp and unstrap/unchain, and then wait for the forklift guy to unload me.

    Sometime around 10 or 11am, that would be done and I would get my next load assignment. So I would face a bounce of roughly anywhere from 50-150 miles to the next shipper. I could get there anywhere between noon and 2pm. Once there, I have to wait to be loaded, secure and tarp my load. That would put me at 5pm or so and I would face anywhere from 300-500 miles to drive to get to the consignee so that it could be unloaded first thing the next morning.

    Now if you add all of that up, you will find that there is absolutely no way to do all of that and get your required 10 hr break in. I basically was expected to work for 8 hours before driving 8 hours every single night. Hardly any of my loads ever made it on time, and I was under constant pressure from my manager to step up my progress.

    Needless to say, I was ready to quit trucking already. Everyone I talked to at TMC told me that I was doing things the right way, but that it just took time before my body would get used to the rigors of truck driving. I was constantly told that because of these efforts, TMC drivers were making more money than anyone else on the road and that I would be more miserable anywhere else.

    All of that changed when I talked to a friend of mine from driving school. She was a professor at Ohio State University before deciding to try her hand at truck driving. While in driving school, she and I became great friends since I also had a lot of college under my belt and was a tutor in English Composition during my time at the University of South Carolina.

    She wanted to go with TMC, but they refused to hire her due to the fact that she was female. (Yes she got the recruiting department to admit that over the phone.) So she went with Transport America. After sharing some road stories back and forth, we came to the topic of pay and work conditions. I found out that she was making the same amount of money as I was, doing a hell of a lot less work, and was not expected to break the law in order to do that work.

    After giving it some thought, I decided that TMC was not for me.

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  3. #2
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    I looked up the most recent stats on TMC, because you offered that they were in some hot water over logs, and guess what...you're right. They were reviewed just last month, and they're ISS-2 was raised to 90. They are apparently pushing their drivers, and the numbers are starting to reflect it.

  4. #3
    Road Train Member MACK E-6's Avatar
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    The appearance of their equipment may start to reflect it too before long.

  5. #4
    Bobtail Member Cocky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by TurboTrucker
    I looked up the most recent stats on TMC, because you offered that they were in some hot water over logs, and guess what...you're right. They were reviewed just last month, and they're ISS-2 was raised to 90. They are apparently pushing their drivers, and the numbers are starting to reflect it.
    Yeah I hadn't done any research into it. My sources are myself and other drivers. I am glad to see that they are having a crackdown over there. Perhaps it will make for a much safer trip for the drivers and the folks that they drive near.


    I also read some report from Roehl in regards to safety rankings or something to that affect. It showed TMC at like #30 something which from what I understand disqualifies them from programs like Prepass. I don't know how accurate it is, of course, since I have been unable to locate a copy of that list from anyone other than the folks in the Roehl recruiting department.

    It would be interesting to keep track of that list as time wears on.

  6. #5
    Bobtail Member
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    Pree Pazz

    Is saftey an issue on pree? always assumed it was behind the yard having scales. and that was it.

    It makes sense, another tool to feel out an org.

    wonder what else will disqualify from pree? size of company? how does the equip handle com? qualcom?

    never had the priv of qualcom, just seen dead units in the trash at roadway, so I know what they look like, is prepass part of qualcom?

  7. #6
    Light Load Member truckntim80's Avatar
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    your answer

    Qual-comm and Pre-pass are 2 totally different things – Qual-comm is the computer keyboard in the truck, to get your load assignments and communicate with dispatch, etc. The pre-pass thing is a by-pass for the scales. I think the company has to have a certain rating of some sort to qualify for it. Basically it is like an EZ pass for the tolls, except in this case for the scales. It will give you a green light or red light, If it’s green, cruise on by, red, stop in chicken house. Hope that helps.

  8. #7
    Light Load Member truckntim80's Avatar
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    also this

    Also want to add to the last post – The Qual-comm can be tracked via satellite. The company can track the truck at any moment. They also know how fast your speed is, RPMs, how long you’ve been rolling, ETC. Basically like a black box for a truck.

  9. #8
    BANNED Redneck's Avatar
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    Re: Pree Pazz

    Quote Originally Posted by David Autrey
    Is saftey an issue on pree? always assumed it was behind the yard having scales. and that was it.

    It makes sense, another tool to feel out an org.

    wonder what else will disqualify from pree? size of company? how does the equip handle com? qualcom?

    never had the priv of qualcom, just seen dead units in the trash at roadway, so I know what they look like, is prepass part of qualcom?
    Did you ever notice the thing hanging out over the right lane that looks like a radar gun?
    This is the prepass site for the scales. The scale master can automaticly give you a red light to bring you in.
    Your company can also give the scales a call and have you brought into the scales for any reason by giving you a red light.

    Speeding past the prepass site will also get you a red light sometimes. It cost the company or O/O so much money for every green light they recieve also.

    When I pulled a tanker it was pretty nice, until 9/11 then we all started to get pulled into the scales all the time.

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  11. #9
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    TMC - Des Moines, IA.

    I am currently waiting to go back to Des Moines to get my own truck, These folks are very dishonest, while with a trainer, they wanted us to take a load of drywall, they would have put us at 85,000 lbs and go around the scales , there words exactly, We do it all the time, Richie says to my trainer. My trainer refused the load and then we got to set for a day and half, because no loads available, Training cord mike rourke is a liar, what a real piece of work. I have been sitting for two weeks for my own truck. When in the Des Moines yard they said it would take 2 days. Dot was there while I was at orientation, for 4 weeks, yes 4 weeks they got a 94 score, 1 being good, 100 being bad, They put on a good front about safety, its a joke. They sent out our truck from the Des Moines yard with cords showing on both steer tires and drives, we had no dash lights, cruise control would stick, dropped a trailer in Ankeny yard, picked up drop deck with 8 bald tires,metal showing on 5 of them, no kidding. took 6 hours to get them changed, all this happened in my 5 weeks of training. They tell us that they have $12000, invested in us at this point. If I quit I owe $1200, And then that will go on my record as a quitter. I am at this point wondering what to do. Dont work for these fools.

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  13. #10
    Road Train Member MACK E-6's Avatar
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    Are they under some sort of new management now? This is becoming a common complaint. Last I looked, their ISS-2 was throught the roof. It may not be too long before those nice looking trucks of theirs start to reflect their safety numbers, or worse.

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