Companies That Avoid Both Coasts?

Most of the replies to the threads that you started a year ago probably still ring true. If you’re wanting to stay in the middle of the country that expecting to stay out of Chicago isn’t really feasible. You may not be picking up or delivering there but expecting to run the center of the country you won’t be able to flat out avoid it. Unless your plans changed from last year the hurdles you will face in addition to lack of recent driving employment will be not having a home base to speak of and wanting to live in the truck.

 

Two problems is most dry van companies are more prone to running a smaller radius than reefer outfits, at least in my experience. If you go to a larger dry van outfit, you'll be far more prone to Chicago and coasts with less say on how you run.

Second problem is the market's down and you've been out of the truck a while. You're having to hope the company you like is hiring and can even hire you.

With that said, the only companies that come to mind that I rarely see on either coast and typically west of the Mississippi with some non-reefer freight is Gamer Logistics out of El Paso, MVT out of Las Cruces, and the odd ball is Foltz Trucking, which is a medium sized hopper company out of Minnesota. And theres H&M trucking out of Nebraska, I believe. I doubt any completely avoid Chicago, but I didn't see them much when I drove for a Joliet company.

Besides that, you'll probably be cherry picking from mom and pop companies that won't be able to hire you until you get recent experience.

 

Chicago really ain't that bad, compared to some east coast cities....like Baltimore, where I started my driving career, and Philly, where I delivered at LEAST once a week.

If you run midwest regional, it will be impossible to avoid Chicago completely.

 

You might be able to pull it off with a regional position, Mid-South comes to mind, but those are harder to come by these days, even for drivers with recent experience. You'd probably have to take whatever you could get for the time being. Are you back in the U.S.? If so, you could check out CFI and PTL. I haven't checked recently but they were running a Mid-South last year, and both offered refreshers. If I'm not mistaken, PTL has a free rider-policy, but don't quote me on that. Their pay is low too.

 

I'm not sure if I've ever heard of Green Products, but I'm sure I've seen them around before.

Another company I thought of is Trekker. I don't know their actual running lanes, but I mostly see them in the plains states and CO and I've only seen them with dry vans, so they might be close to what you're wanting.

There's Cedarpoint trucking out of Idaho as well. They do reefer freight, but it's mostly potatoes, which won't have the reefer screaming 24/7 like meat and ice cream haulers. Not sure what else, but I liked their running lanes, equipment, and location when I inquired a couple years ago.

I've been at Climate Express for the last 9 months or so and pretty happy overall. Mix of dry van and reefer, but the majority of the reefer loads are 40-55 degree start/stops, so it barely ever kicks on in the spring and fall. I'd say only <10% of the loads are true reefer loads like most imagine and very few are produce. We haul taters, but very little produce otherwise. Pretty much exclusively out and back from MO. Vast majority of the loads are to SC/GA, PA, WI/MN, TX, and CO, so it's a nice variety without dealing with too much of a harsh winter. I wish we went out to the mountain west more, but enough variety to keep me happy anyways. I'm averaging like 2800-3200 miles a week, in a new truck with an APU, and it's laid back, so I'll be here a while.

I'll give DHT credit, they easily have some of the best running lanes in the industry for solo drivers, IMO.

 

In my 35 years and a dozen jobs, primarily based in Wisconsin, there was no way to avoid Chicago. Most midwest jobs have something to do with Chicago, or going through it. Chicago is a piece of cake compared to the old "Water Market", and low bridge days. Most bridges are dug out now, and most commerce is in the suburbs, but oh yeah, waiting for traffic to clear, because the oncoming side had more clearance, dasn't take a truck east "of the river", and to be honest, the only place I felt nervous, was the Conrail facility on 63rd and State. People in Chicago were always great people, help you out if they could.

 

I vaguely remember seeing something like that at Heartland Express last year. But they require recent experience and I think they shifted a lot of their training to CFI after they aquired them. There's a waitlist for the trainers they do still have, or there was last year. I think Crete had some regional in that area too, but they're a little more stringent on the experience and work history requirements.