Bottom Feeders?

There is some anomosity amongst independents when it comes to big companies. For me personally, they've come in offered lower rates, and put inexperienced drivers on my dedicated runs. They can operate at a lower cost and I understand that's just business, but it gets old after a while. I don't think they hold their drivers to high enough of a standard, in personal appearance and such as well.

 

Well let's see...

The rookies are starting out in ground level, correct?

The megas send their recruiters to the schools offering rookies sunshine injections to Uranus and prehire letters and whatnot. They cram them into a POS motel, and send them through a program that has the look and feel of a slaughterhouse.

So, if rookies are starting out on the bottom, what would you call the trucking companies that prey on the ones at the bottom?

 

Because that's what they are.People aren't saying not to drive for them just telling you what thryre like.Once you get the exp you'll be calling them bottom freeders as well.

 

No doesnt mean that at all.Just means they hire anyone with a pulse and pays the lowest.Nothing personal against the driver.We all have to start somewhere.ive had my fair share of bottom feeders.Most the drivers are new drivers.

 

When you get your experience from someone that has had 6 months of experience himself. That is definitely were these bottom feeders get their name.

 

Bottom feeder company.

A company that preys on the weak and easy targets. The poor, the desperate, and the uninformed. This is a knock against the company's behavior, not the driver that runs for them. Hire the least experienced guy, pay him the least, and expect perfection.

 

I prefer to call them "training carriers". And considering how trucking needs have exploded the last 20 years, this was the only outcome one could expect. (The explosion of training carriers)

Lowes down the street will pay maybe $9/hr and 30 hours a week. Swift and others claim potential first year earnings of $50k. People are desperate to provide for their family and to eat. How can you fault them or the carriers who assume the risk and liability to satisfy demand for truckload movements?

Call them what you want. But they are a necessary part of the nation's ecomic engine. No amount of "independent owner-operators" could ever exist to haul the sheer numbers of BS loads they haul. You DO want those paper towels and endless supply of toilet paper and cereal that they put on your local store's shelves.

 

There are a few who have a natural talent for truck driving. Decades ago, these were enough to meet the needs. Today? Today we have to "create" truck drivers out of whatever is desperate enough to walk through the door and try out for a largely thankless job that shreds many up and spits them out before they make their first 5 months.