Roadrunner Transportation reviews

Q: Ok guys I have 5 years experience running flatbed. To be honest I'm looking to lease a truck and run my own authority. You know finally get out from under the man.........I know. I know it's not that easy. 
I've researched and researched and 8th talked to around 70 recruiters over the last week and I've got to say I've narrowed my options down to roadrunner cause of their marine division and ATS because of their good reviews. I was just wondering what you guys thought and who you would perfer. Thanks in advance.

A: Both work with where I live. Roadrunner has a dedicated run out of my area In their marine division paying very well. The jobs mine as soon as I decide to pull the trigger.
ATS also works well with where I live. And to be honest I just like the way their drivers talk with me. Every one of them seem happy and well paid. 
My biggest concern is ending up with a company that I do not want to invest my time in. I love driving and I don't mind the hours and weeks out. But I also expect respect. And I'm thinking that these two companies are Def respected

- Roadrunner Transportation pool trailers, total scam. I list my reasons below and hope this helps other IC realize how horrible it is to sign up for them. 

1) Cost. $210.00 PER WEEK. You read that correct that's per week. Let's do some basic math with said figure. I hate to say it but that's $840.00 per month for a trailer. If decent credit one can go and find a brand new one for $300-400 a month. Cutting your cost in half. If you decide to be off for one week and want to stay home, you are still charged that $210.00

2) Their posters at each terminal states "less waiting! , less downtime!, less expenses! , more profit!" This is direct from Roadrunner themselves. I explain why this is a lie. Less waiting and less downtime means the same thing. It's like saying you have a dollar bill or you have four quarters, same amount. You do not wait less. Most of the time you call the terminal you are heading to and they say ok you are on the board for so and so night. You end up waiting an extra two days for that pool trailer to be loaded anyway. Less expenses--$840 a month in comparison to having your own trailer at $400 is NOT less expensive.

3) WHY ON EARTH DO THEY SAY DROP AND HOOK WHEN YOU DROP ONE DAY HOOK IN TWO DAYS
Pool trailers are meant to be used like this. You have a pool trailer going to LA. You call them Monday tell them you are coming Friday(example). They should then load another pool trailer and have it ready for you, after all you are paying $840 a month. Then you get their Friday and it won't be loaded til Monday night. At least you get 34 hour reset. 

I'm just trying to say $840.00 is stealing from the people who, without, roadrunner wouldn't even exist. Have some respect yeeeesh

- Been with them 8years ; they have their pros and cons just like every company. 

Just wanted to give my two cents on their pool trailers to any other roadrunner operator that is on this forum thinking on using their trailers, or just anyone out there.

- I leased onto them in March 2014, they set me up with an Xtralease rental trailer. I think it was $107 a week plus $85 a month for insurance. That works out to $548 a month or $126 per week.

I remember when they started bringing on the pool trailers, they sure were pretty and shiny that first few months. They were calling me from corporate to turn in my Xtralease and use theirs. The big selling point was the drop and hook trick. It was $185 a week so right away I was not sure $60 bucks a week would be worth it.

Had an opportunity to drop my trailer at the Mira Loma yard because they needed a hot load to get back to St Louis on the pool trailer. So I did that and was supposed to get right back to Mira Loma however another hot load popped up to Orlando out of St Louis. So I thought I would do the pool trailer thing for a bit and see if I'd be making more money.

Turns out I was sitting just as much at terminals as I had before. Typical deal was I'd roll into any given terminal Monday night and they would say 'you are 12th truck out of 17' to deliver tonite. Means they have to load 11 trucks before I get mine. Means I will be sitting there til Thursday night if not Friday night for sure. They locked down the broker freight so hard you had to ask permission to get a broker load if you were close to a terminal. Too many times corporate said, no, make him wait for a terminal load.

Probably my biggest regret about my trucking career so far was not leasing onto Roadrunner back in 2011 after I talked to that driver explaining how he ran mostly broker freight and a few terminal loads a month. By 2014 it was still that way but they flipped the script and locked down the drivers to strictly terminal freight. Then if by some miracle they release you to get your own load, you couldn't call just any broker off ITS, no you had to call the inhouse RR agents to book the loads for you. You'd work with a guy for 2-3 loads and think now I can start to press for more money as I have proven myself to this guy. Can't get ahold of that guy anymore, they have this new guy you gotta talk to and he doesn't know how you run so you have to run cheap to prove yourself to him. See where it is going?

Not sure how those RR drivers are surviving that I see running the interstates. $210 a week times 52 weeks is $10920 a year divided by 12 is $910 a month just to rent their trailer. I knew it had to happen that they'd raise it from $185, those trailers are coming up on 2 years old and needing new tires and brakes that the drivers like to use the trolley brake going down hills to save the tractor brakes.

Q: I am considering signing on with Roadrunner as a T2T LTL driver. Any information you guys have is much appreciated. I saw other dated threads and YouTube vids, most claiming it's a good deal and after speaking with the recruiter it seems decent. I am looking for some honest recent feedback regarding this company. Recruiter said it pays about 1.20 to 2.10 per loaded mile plus FSC and lease is about $800/wk. All I really want to know is if the claims are genuine and how decent the freight lanes are... I don't need stories of L/P nightmares at other companies or the L/P is for idiots spiel (really not that interested in ownership and will probably change trucks)... just straight up details on what to expect with RRTS. Thanks and please don't mess up my thread...or I will return the favor

A: I would guesstimate the total weekly overhead to be closer to $1100 a week at RR for a lease truck. The reason I say that is because just the truck alone is close to $600 a week, then you have insurances, trailer pool rental which was $185 a week and heard a rumor they raised it to $210 a week. Then you have a forced maintenance fund something like $0.11 a mile. Plates, permits, all that is charged back to the Independent contractor paid in so many weeks. then an escrow will be deducted so many weeks til it's paid too. 

If you're talking to a recruiter nail down all the costs for leasing your truck and renting a trailer. Health insurance, tax service, legal defense all can be deducted weekly too. It is very important to nail down your overhead for the business and the overhead for your Life and come up with a breakeven number so you have a chance to survive. 

Once you lease on, you'll need every terminal planner's number and use it to set up preloads and reloads at terminals you are inbound to. 

RR broker agents will call you daily to try to load you at $1.10 times 94% which is a hard pill to swallow. ATBS tax service says it's OK. run 90,000 miles at $1.5 and 30,000 miles at $1 and come out with $1.37 a mile on the year.

A: You will have to be very good with money and strict discipline with it. For the T2T loads, they will advance 100% of the fuel surcharge to your fuel card up front as soon as you are dispatched. Then they will also advance 40% of the linehaul to your fuel card. 

You figure out how much money you need for fuel for that trip and the balance you can leave on the card, or take it as cash advance when you fuel $200 a day which is free inside the truck stop, use it at ATM and pay a fee, or transfer it to your bank account. 

RR is coldhearted. If you blew all your money and ran out of fuel 100 miles from the destination, they will not give you more money, they will send someone to rescue your load and terminate you. I have heard of guys breaking down and using their fuel money to fix the truck and RR was merciless. 

They have a new policy, breakdown and you can rent a truck while yours is getting fixed. But rental is limited to 2 weeks. This happened to me, my truck had a catastrophic breakdown after already spending $28,000 bucks it is stuck at the shop. I only owe $2500 more and I get it back but RR was zero help, they made me turn in the rental truck which cut off my legs. I had to go to work at another company now to pay the bill. I will have to terminate my lease with RR I think and the escrow I have with them will cover my negative settlements for the last 3 weeks.

I worked as an O/O for this company early 2015 for a couple of months. I was told by a recruiter that they needed drivers for their LTL loads, all drop and hook, terminal to terminal. After driving to Dallas Texas for 2 day orientation I soon find out that drop and hook is actually drop and wait. Additionally terminal to terminal in many cases was after you did a stop at a receiver for partial freight unloading which to my dismay sometimes required unloading nearly the entire trailer for them to get their freight and then having to reload the remaining freight so I could continue on to the RoadRunner terminal. RoadRunner paid an extra $40 for the stop which is nowhere worth the time involved nor travel expenses, also you'd better hope the stop you have to go to doesn't take a long time to offload their freight because Roadrunner doesn't pay you any detention pay.

During orientation I also found out that RoadRunner charges many many many fee's that were never disclosed to me prior to orientation. I nearly walked out of orientation but was really needing to work so I hoped for the best and figured I'd give it a try. Their Per mile rate wasn't too bad but after all the BS deductions (which there are many) the only way I was going to make my nut every month was to stay out on the road permanently. In the short time I was there I had several 2-3 day layovers even though I took all the steps in obtaining a load (emails,calls,etc). I always seemed to get held up because some other driver(s) didn't show up in time with their portion of my LTL freight, RoadRunner isn't in the business of sending out a half loaded trailer so even though I was on schedule I still had to wait because other drivers were running late.

And hopefully you never have a problem afterhours because there's NOBODY to help. Most of their so called terminals are a joke, no RoadRunner name to be found anywhere because RoadRunner is just renting a few docks at that location from another company yet they have the balls to call iut one of their terminals, LMFAO. Not to mention I had several wrong addresses given to me for delivery locations, I'd have to Google the name of the place to find out where I was really supposed to go.

All I can say is I wish I'd never came in contact with RoadRunner, driver beware. I've since found a great Mom and Pop trucking company to lease onto as an O/O and I'm very happy.

A friend of mine who is still there runs Milwaukee to LA, LA to Albuquerque and Denver (where he delivers to Road Runner agents/drayage partners) and then brokers something back to Milwaukee (he lives in Colorado). For him, living where he does, it's about the only OTR company where he can get home regularly and still have quite a bit of freedom. As a solo he grosses right around $210,000 per year with his reefer trailer.

You won't have anyone holding your hand or pushing you to take freight, it's the epitome of "no forced dispatch". Your best option is to find a lane you want to run and get familiar with the operations personnel in each terminal. While they have been putting an emphasis on loading their own leased operators first, some terminals have contracts with outside carriers in order to handle the volumes they sometimes have. Getting to know the terminal people and them finding out you're dependable makes life for you as a contractor a lot easier.

Stay very clear of RoadRunner. Biggest mistake of my career was switching to them as an owner op. I am about to lose my house and everything because they have literally starved my husband and I.
They will lie to you in orientation and tell you they have more freight than drivers and when you get to a terminal you tell them where you want to go.
Well first off let me give you the true insight:
- the trailers are not closed out unless it is 100% max capacity filled. LTL is no true here. The average load is 35k or more.
- even if you are scheduled for the load and are a team they WILL NOT close out trailer if it's not full until they load a few more pallets on THE NEXT NIGHT! Yes you sit there all night and all the following day.
- If you are sitting at a terminal FORGET about a broker load. They will never approve you.
- 1st broker load RRTS take out 6%, 2nd broker load they take out 12%, third they take out 18%, 4th they take out 24% and so on.
- terminals barely have enough freight to keep anyone rolling.
-DESPITE WHAT TRAILERS SAY IN ADDS AND TERMINALS TELL YOU THERE ARE NO DEDICATED LANES HERE!!! The main operations manager will not even help you out here if you are promised a dedicated lane.
- $210 A WEEK TO BE IN TRAILER POOL which allows you to drop and hook trailers at terminals!!! And the trailers are NOT MAINTAINED. They argue about replacing illegal tires. And HOLES IN EVERY CEILING OF TRAILER because they load freight to the cieling. Also be careful opening doors because a pallet stacked sideways on top on a fragile box will fall on you. It's happened more times than I can count.
- you will have a load and deliver on time, to sit for about 2-3 days to get your next. Especially if you are team. You won't get any more than 5500 miles a week if your lucky at $1 a mile or less.

LIARS WHO ONLY CARE ABOUT THEMESLEVES! So many hidden deductions. This wasn't even everything... But stay away. I am leaving here after ruining my career for the last 6 months!!