U.S. Express Orientation be prepared

@Denimguy,

I just completed orientation in Dallas, Tx. The staff there was great and very professional. I have a great fleet manager who always has the time to answer my questions. I chose USX after talking to several of their drivers and they all said the same. I had to drive to Laredo to get my truck and was paid to go get and given a rental car. I am very glad I came over here and hopefully this will be my last.

 

Pretty much ditto for us. My wife and I joined USX the first of the year and we are VERY happy. Great miles with great pay, an excellent Fleet Manager and we have met a ton of great people. I am sure bad stuff will happen but the company seems pretty solid. A brand new 2012 Freightliner Cascadia with a 10 speed does not hurt either

 

1 year lease trucks are set at 70 MPH, company trucks at 65.

 

What are some average weekly miles for the Midwest or East. I'm in southern Michigan.


Also I heard USX has electronic logs and wondered what you thought of their system.

Another thing is what is their dispatch like? Do you finish your current delivery before getting another dispatch or do they give you preplans?

 

Not everyone is on e-logs yet but we are moving there. I believe all of the larger companies will be on e-logs soon. As a team, e-logs are kinda nice not having to worry about log books. As a solo driver I have no idea how you would make it work without cheating.

Again, we are a team so I cannot address solo miles.

Our Fleet Manager is awesome and we never sit for long. Load planning is, for the large part, becoming automated so it is up to you to adjust your PTA and communicate with you FM before you drop your current load.

Hope this helps. All FM's are different so your experience may vary.

 

As a solo driver, I get decent miles when I can keep my 08 Volvo outta the shop. 2000 to 2500/ week. Not crazy about the airfrieght loads they keep trying to give me as I do not drive well after 2 or 3 AM. They have threatened to fire me over refusing them. I tell them to do what they gotta do. It seems that dispatch is only concerned about the on-time delivery but a phone call to safety usually will help keep priorities straight. Those priorities are Safely, Legally, and On time. in that order.

I love my elogs, but then I did not cheat before them on paper logs so, not much has changed for me. I guess the toughest thing to get used to with elogs is that you are working with minutes and seconds on the computer instead of 15 minute intervals on paper. This can both work for you and against you. The driver tech(when it works right) will let you know an hour before you have to stop so you have time to locate parking. You get notified again at 30 and 15 min.

An interesting experience I had a couple of months ago. I was on a back road in Ga. and had to stop for 3 troopers with a road block. One asked if I had a log book and when I replied it was on my computer, he waved me on. Not thiry minutes later I had pulled out on I-16 and the prepass red lighted me to enter the scales. I saw the DOT man out there by the scale. He asked when the last time was that I had been inspected. I said that it had been a long time. He asked if I had a log book. I told him it was on my computer. He told me to get outta here, you can't lie on that thing..LOL I love my elogs.

I hope this helps.

 

Okay thanks for the feedback. My last company had Elogs on PeopleNet and I didn't care for it much. However it depends on how you're being run.

If a few things were improved at my last company maybe Elogs would be okay. For example many things were coming from brokers with goofy directions and wasting my time including incorrect or old disconnected phone numbers so phoning for directions didn't always help. Also it would help if I was better informed on whether a customer allowed truck parking.

As for miles between 2000 and 2500 sounds reasonable.

 

I am supposed to be in Shippensburg PA for orientation on 3-21-11. I've been reading the good and the bad about USX. Can somebody give me the strait talk on orientation and the company overall?

It will be apprectiated.

 

Here is a link to our orientation experiences the first week on January.
http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...30056-team-starting-out-with-us-xpress-2.html

 

2000 - 2500 = not enough miles I average 2800 - 3400 per week. solo