Royal Trucking Company reviews

Company does flatbed and van. The trucks are a mix of International and Freightliner and range from new to about 5 years old. New people get the older trucks. The new trucks are the Freightliners with the DD12 engine. They suck pulling any kind of hill. The internationals have the C15 engine and pull uphill better but the transmission and axles are weaker not to mention they randomly and automatically slam on the brakes anytime another vehicle gets within 100 yards. It is a severe overreaction and is extremely unsafe and despite it almost causing several accidents the company refuses to do anything about it. The trailers are a mixed bag, some are decent and some are really bad, I haven’t seen a good one yet. The company doesn’t take care of them so being broke down because of a trailer is actually pretty common. As a result most drivers will drag a busted trailer across the country and dump it at a shipper or receiver, because the company won’t fix it anyway until they have no other choice. Maintenance is a joke. It’s not uncommon to have your truck in the shop 5 times for the same exact thing and it’s still broken. They say it’s fixed, but it’s not, they didn’t do anything to it. You have to go through the inspection bay every time you are in the yard. It is pointless, your pretrip is much more detailed than their inspection. If there is a female driver ahead of you forget getting on the road within the hour. They will be flirting with her instead of doing their inspection and they won’t let you out of the yard without an inspection. This company promises you 2 days of hometime every 2 weeks, you won’t see that. You’ll get a 34 hour reset at the yard in West Point, MS about every 3 weeks. If you live somewhere else you will have to drive your car back and forth further reducing your home time. They say drivers can take their trucks home but the truth is only some drivers can take their trucks home, they will find some excuse not to let you. They say you’ll get paid $15 an hour past 2 hours of detention, they won’t pay it no matter how you document it. Some loads you will have to help unload, usually small furniture stores, and multiple deliveries. They say they will pay $65 every time you have to get in the trailer. This is a flat out lie. They will pay you $50 for the entire trip so if it takes you 2 hours to unload and you have 5 stops you are working for $5 an hour (less than minimum wage.) They will keep you moving so you will get miles, but they pay household goods miles at $0.43 per mile (direct from center of one zip code to the center of the next zip code), not miles actually driven regardless of detours or construction. You have to use their route on their copilot app on their ELD tablet. The tablets are so slow you are constantly waiting on them to catch up, I’m surprised I haven’t broken mine or thrown it out the window yet. The routes maximize fuel efficiency and minimize miles without regard for time, so get used to taking backroad “shortcuts.” If you go a faster route they will charge you $1 per mile out of route and if you break down or get stuck they will make you pay for the tow truck. They claim you can make $1500 a week easy. I make about $800-1000 a week before taxes. The loads are a lot of wire, and furniture. The occasional landfill load, and often brokered loads to get you back to the yard. It is 100% forced dispatch, your dispatcher is your driver manager. Some are cool, some think they are God’s gift to you. Most will act like it comes out of their paycheck if you request a day off. They think you exist solely to drive their truck. Let’s not forget bonuses. You’ll never see one. They claim you will get a safety bonus, or a this bonus or a that bonus, you won’t. They will find some nonsensical reason to take it away.