info on usa

My opinion is not one of the better ones. Slow trucks, pay is not that great and they used to tend to forget where home was. They also used to run trainer/trainees like teams. Hard to learn when the trainer is snoozing.

 

I went to usa for orientation did the drug test physical road test and was hired. I was told I would be paid .36cpm for experience but was told after hire that it would be .28cpm, what a load. When I called to ask my dm they said in no uncertain terms that I would not be paid experiance so, I said fine I will go some ware else. They told me to be out of the hotel or they would call the police, this is when I no longer was nice and said go leap of a tall cliff. They did not own the hotel. Not a good company.

 

I have been with USA for 5 months. As soon as my second mortgage goes through on my home, I am gone. My gross pay so far this year is just over $6800. My takehome pay ranges from $78 - $480 each week and I don't even have their insurance! This isn't worth being away from my family and home.

 

Are you going to work for another company driving a truck or are you out of trucking all together?

 

I need to find a different company. I have too much invested in driving so far.

 

see next post

 

I just quit USA (SW regional) this week after 19 months with them. First, the good points, which won't last too long. Big terminals, but about half the area is taken up by old trailers they have yet to trade in. Much of their equipment is fairly new--Great Dane trailers and late model International trucks (although you are governed at 62, so you will make everyone in the hammer lane PO'd at you if you have to get in it). Of course you won't get a new truck right away, but if it breaks down badly enough, they may upgrade you. Also, no frickin' cab extenders to inevitably get bent up making a tight U-turn at a facility--only company I know of that doesn't put them on.

Now the bad points (hope I don't run out of space!). If home time means anything to you, I hope you live close to one of their terminals. (An ABF terminal is not good enough, which I'll get to later.) I drove in Regional and they still screwed up getting me home in some way about every other week. They will often make you wait most of the weekend at a terminal for a load that you (and they) have no way of knowing when it's going to be there (and they won't tell you it's not there already unless you ask them). Then if you get home on Sunday, they may offer you Monday off, as if that makes up for your weekend being wasted. Their policy is you have to go home under a load, and your load may not go through where you live, so you could drive hundreds of miles out of your way to go home and hundreds of miles more to go back and make the delivery, and they do not pay any of those extra miles you have to drive. If the shipper rejects your empty or the consignee refuses your load, they will not pay you for any extra driving you have to do to remedy the situation. They will not alter the point A to point B dispatched miles. SO if you have extra stops that are scheduled stupidly, you only get paid the miles from the pickup point to the consignee as if that was what your route actually would be (just like when you go home). If they absolutely have to deadhead you home (again, conceivably hundreds of miles), they will not pay you any of those miles. Basically they can put you on any kind of crap load to "get you home" and they'll think they did their job, even though it's their fault they're making you drive for free and cutting into your hometime. And you have to examine your statements like a hawk. This company will screw you out of your money seven ways from Sunday if you let them. They will conveniently forget your empty miles pay, your short haul miles pay, your hazmat pay (expect to haul hazmat at least once a month), your extra stop pay, and anything else you may think you have resolved with your FM. Good luck trying to get your pay fixed. Funny how PR never errs in the driver's favor. Trying to get detention pay out of your FM is like pulling teeth. They give you no bonuses at all--no idle bonuses, no MPG bonus, no mileage bonus, no safety bonus. Trying to get a hold of dispatch or breakdown during lunch, at nights or on the weekends is often futile. If you call breakdown (at any time), you have to go through a stupid menu, then chances are nobody will pick up, which means it kicks you right back to the main menu again!!! It's a frickin' joke. This company is not worth the endless frustration you will have trying to deal with them. They are now refusing to pay my vacation pay because I didn't take it before I quit and they are also charging me 50 cpm (out of my escrow--they steal $500 from you right up-front) to get their truck back to Van Buren, AR even though I left it at their designated secure parking space in my home area (an ABF terminal), which they didn't tell me they were going to do until after I left it there, even though they knew the day before that I was going to. After all the money they've screwed me out of, they have some G.D. nerve. SCREW THEM!!!

 

Well my hubyy is taring with them right now so i guess well see , so far he like it but he as to like it for a yr as there paying for his school so after a yr who knows he may be going some where else but i will make sure he looks at this post when he comes home and put his fells on the matter down .

 

Jen; keep in mind that Pat is a trainee. He will not have any info other than what he is told by the trainer or co. Exp. speaks a lot of volume in this job. When he racks up miles under his belt he will have a better outlook on trucking and trucking companies. Someone new to trucking only has the company perception. This is not a put down to Pat or any other trainee. Pat and I have PMed each other and he is aware of the choice of starting with some companies. I understand why he went with them. I had told him what I would do and listed some options. He will tell you that I am shooting straight up. I joke around with him a lot on here and get my jabs in when I can because he is the type that it is fun to post with him. He is a good person and I enjoy joking with him.