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Having enough trailers is a problem that all carriers are suffering at the moment. Customers tie them up for periods beyond what is expected or contracted in some cases. It's a constant battle. I would expect that they are operating at a ratio of five to one, which in normal circumstances should be more than enough, but shippers and receivers have a tendency to load or leave them loaded for a very big reason, depending on the time of the month or year.
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It's about 3-1 45,000 trailers, 5,000 containers, about 15,000 powers. There are adding containers at a pretty good clip and keeping trailer and power numbers pretty steady. The goal is to use trailer tracking to reduce the number of trailers they have to buy/maintain.
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I didn't read anything that you have eluded to, but that's beside the point. You gave them four months, or thereabouts according to your posts, and in my opinion, that's not enough time to fully have a chance to evaluate and initiate yourself into a company.
From what I understand, Schneider has an excellent program in place to assist drivers in dealing with problems they are encountering, and all a driver has to do is to avail themselves of that system. I see nothing in your posts to suggest that you did this. You quit.
Your first week with your new company was great, and while I hope it stays that way for you, if it does not, I urge you to take time to work out your difficulties before you move on to another place.
The thing that many people do not realize, is that all companies have problems, and they have periods of time when work slows and pay drops off. Trucking is as unpredictable at times as the weather is. Because all aspects of the pay are production oriented, there will be good weeks and bad weeks.
So many people leave at the first sign of a slow period, and move on elsewhere, without giving a company a chance to improve things for the driver. Then, when the same thing happens at the new company, off they go again to yet another.
When you have been in the game as long as I have, you know this to be the case, and you prepare for the bad weeks by pocketing funds when things are good to PREPARE for the bad weeks or periods.
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Schneider has admitted some real issues pertaining to trailer tracking and trailer availability, a poorly performing new directions system, as well as with the amount of miles that were available in the first part of 2005 (in part stemming from poor service performance which in turn led to less freight being given to Schneider by customers). I appreciate them being straight about the issues that have come up.
If he was with Schneider 4 months and if he was meeting safety and service standards he was probably with his "permanent" STL (Service Team Leader) who has 40 or more drivers to keep track of. The STL is basically a Customer Service Rep who takes passes information back and forth between the driver and the various parts of the organzation. So if the driver is having issues the STL can explain the rules and can make some small decisions (authorizing reimbursement for expenses etc) but mostly will be in turn asking someone else to fix it. With a lot of drivers to take care of it's easy to lose track of all the issues. To some extent the driver is dependent on how good of an STL he has and also on making enough noise to be keep his problems on the STL's radar. If you just do your thing you can spend too much time sitting or on bad loads.
Miles can be hard to come by out West from what I have heard. I ran in the Midwest and East mostly and averaged about 2300 miles a week starting out. I know if you wind up on the left coast you tend to run up and down I-5 until they need to free up some rail space and you can catch a load going East.
I think Schneider is a good company (I have been with em two years) but they aren't perfect. The turnover is high but not all of that is the company. A lot of it is the lifestyle and the stress of the job (time pressure, driving, money). Many will leave the industry. Many will hop to another carrier as soon as they can. Some folks do have a bad time because somebody in the company mistreats them but most folks have self inflicted issues.
01.21.2006
Problem is I'm tired of it. I'm 48 and need a change. How much $$ can I make if I go to Schneider and drive Team ? 
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