My experience with Roehl Transport

Here's my story. I worked for Roehl as my first company out of CDL school in 2002. Things were OK as far as not yet knowing OTR or the lifestyle. Anyway, I was hauling van for Roehl 5 months and got a wild hair to try out the flatbed division. Even though I was a driver assigned my own truck, I had to train with a trainer to learn load securement and such. I didn't want to driver during the training and waste hours in my log because I was paid a flat $65 a day and required only 4 hours of work to earn it.

After 4 weeks of flatbed I made the decision it wasn't for me and I requested to go back to van. They toted me around in flatbed loads an extra 2 weeks before I got to the main terminal to turn in my "flatbed mid top" for a van condo. I was 60 miles from the Gary, IN terminal and I could have dropped the truck there and gone on to van but they made me wait 23 hrs to swap loads with a southbounder from Michigan! They told me he was on his way and would be at my location by the time my break was over. An hour before my break was over I called to check on his progress. HE HADN'T EVEN LEFT MICHIGAN YET!!! Hence the 23 hr wait. Again, I was only an hour away from the Gary terminal!

They got me down to Atlanta with the load from MI and said they would change trucks there and after arriving, I had to do another load from the Atlanta yard to a location within the Atlanta area. Next I was told I would change trucks at home terminal in Marshfield, WI. and so... I took a load up there and did one more local run there before I finally got back in the van division.

There was another incident where I was suppose to go from Gary, IN to Austin, TX. So I was on the run and was given a Qualcomm message to meet with another driver and swap loads because he had to go to Texas for an emergency at home. I let them know my HOS and they told me to figure a meeting point. I came up with a truckstop just over the Missouri, Arkansas line because he was coming up that way. It worked out well because we both parked with only 15 minutes of drive left for the day.

So, I took his load to Chicago and he took mine to Austin. Now the cheat. When I got paid for this run, they paid my miles like I drove directly to that truckstop down I-57. I didn't. I was traveling down I-55 with their assigned load and almost made it to St Louis before I diverted back along I-57 then down to Arkansas and our designated stop. This was an extra 87 miles so I had to fight 4 months to get that pay correction. I drove the route THEY told me to!!

Another fact. Roehl, when I drove for them in 2003 paid HHG miles and said that was the industry standard. BS!! By then 80% of big companies started to pay practical route miles. Now Roehl has the gonads to boast in their advertisements how HHG is a driver rip off!! For those who don't know HHG or Household Goods miles were designed in the 1940's when trucks were small and could travel small non STAA routes. Basically, zipcode to zipcode. In laymen's terms, if you drive HHG you're driving an average of 16%-19% more than you are getting paid for. In some big cities this means driving 40 minutes or 30 miles and getting zero miles on your pay stub!!

The biggest ripoff was when I left. I moved to CA and without the freight, I would get hometime every 6-7 week instead of every 2. I turned the truck in at the Atlanta terminal with all my equipment. I asked the dispatcher on duty to give me a copy of the signed equipment list and he told me he was faxing it to Marshfield, WI right now. My wife came down to pick me up and brought the steering wheel lock which I forgot to get from in the garage the last time I was home. Now I had a witness to me turning in all the equipment. We had been issued 3 locks, a steering wheel lock, a kingpin lock, and a lock to put on the trailer doors at orientation and was charged $100 deposit for them.

When my final check came, they never gave me my deposit back, charged an addition $100 for the locks, owed me another $140 in back mileage issues. This went unresolved for 2 months. I called back to the Marshfield, WI terminal and requested personally to speak with the owner Rick Roehl. I told him the story and gave him the lock numbers to track. They were either at Atlanta or assigned out. He said he would check into it and have someone contact me. No action was ever taken so I was ripped off $340!!

By the way, never received any bonus that was promised even though I exceeded their expectations on idle time, fuel burn, and no mishaps. Their excuse.....you weren't here a full year even though their policy was a bonus every 6 months. I was there 10 months! I made good on it cause I ignored my over speed percent. In just one week the overspeed percent went from .02% to 76%! Figure I can make more money getting loads on and off faster than riding my brakes down the hill to keep the truck below 67 mph. Incidentally, the speed limit was 70 mph. After that I have no faith in bonuses; they're for suckers! You get fired if the truck rolls faster than the set speed of 65 mph and reaches 70. This is even if you are a stretch with a legal 75 mph speed limit! They got a bogus fuel/idle policy and they'll clear your qualcomm data sometimes a day early. They usually dump the driver data remotely for the month at the end of the month so doing this causes you to not make the necessary miles that month for your mileage bonus! Any excuse to take it away!! Guess when they partnered under Schneider, what do you expect.

Finally, you get paid to move. "If you ain't turnin', you ain't earnin'" so get the load down the road safely and promptly. "Slow trucks mean low bucks!" Back to Roehl, they have great home time if you are in the freight lanes but don't expect to get home when you need to for an event. I gave them 6 weeks notice, reminded my DM every week and he kept me out until I threatened to park the truck and take a plane or bus home. I needed to be home on a Tuesday and he didn't get me there until Friday night.

Like any of these big companies, you follow the freight it keeps them in business and if you don't want to go along for the ride there is always some shmo who will drive for 30 somethin' cents a mile! Your best bet? Go drive for an independent truck owner and stay clear of the large companies. In the long run, you'll soon find out the "lifestyle" isn't so glamorous, and neither are their paychecks. Good luck!

 

Just because a truck is wide open doesn't mean you have to drive it that way. It is nice to know you can get around trouble instead of head right into it. How many times may I ask have you had to jam on brakes cause the guy on the left is doing a little more than you and you are running right up the ### of a Swift truck doing 62?