Reality of Swift: How to get screwed

The general public needs protection laws from Swift drivers.

 

Well, thats why the Teamster union exists. Thats why OOIDA exists. All it would take is some driver from inside Swift (or any company for that matter) to call the local union office near them.

I have worked for union companies (in fact I do right now - USF Holland which is part of YRC), and I have worked for non-union companies. A well run company that treats its drivers well has no need for the union. In my opinion. A bad company should either die a painful death or go union. In my opinion.

But the truth of the matter is this: the US is short about 1 million CDL drivers. And dirtbag companies like ANY of the rookie companies (Swift, Werner, CR England, ect ect) are necessary. Lying to people to get them in the door is one way to get people in the door. Rookies are going to make mistakes that cost the company money. They are going to have accidents that is going to cost the company money. The companies only recourse is to pay them less to make up for what they are going to cost the company in mistakes and accidents. And this mean that those drivers, if they survive the first few months will take their skills elsewhere, but remain in the CDL workforce. Those that dont will go to McDonalds.

The industry is so short on drivers that even LTL companies have begun to resort to training their own drivers. I know YRC, USF Holland, and Estes at the very least are doing it (training their dock guys to drive). Know that for a fact. And these are companies that can not afford to have accidents and mistakes, but they have gotten to the point where they have to accept those losses just to get the bodies in the door.

 

If the pay, benefits, and treatment were better there would be no shortage of high quality people wanting to drive trucks. As it is this industry attracts the desperate and the gullible.

 

My problem mainly is not giving truckers the proper time off. To prevent accidents, companies should overhaul days off and EOD hours.

 

How long have you been trucking? Do you think SNI is a good company? I got into this industry wanting better pay but to explore the US. Mostly out of desperation due to not enjoying where I live currently.

 

2.5 years and SNI is not a good company. It is ranked right up there with Swift, Werner, CR England, and the rest of the megas in treating their drivers like interchangeable pieces of meat. I too belong in the desperate category. The money is there if you’re willing to work like a dog to get it.

 

Well I've had my license now for about two years and haven't used it yet because the only companies that will take me seem to be those megas. I've searched high and low for a decent starter company with no luck so I might be forced in going with SNI.

 

As a starter company Schneider isn't bad. I spent 4 years there when I started driving. It did get progressively worse with micromanagement the last 3-4 years though (one of the reasons I left). At least they don't have driver facing cams (pretty sure they've put in outward dash cams).

Depending on what you'd be doing and where you are located I'd suggest it. Where you at?

 

I will say this much..there is NO driver shortage...if there was, these co's wouldn't pay peanuts...also just because these co's lose so many drivers due to their dishonesty doesn't make it a driver shortage...

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if that corrupt greedy sack of donkey #### Jerry Moyes and his band of thugs (aka board of directors) have a program for paying fmcsa a large some of bribe cash. Their miserable safety record is very well known, and considering FMCSA wants to let mega training companies let poorly trained rookies drive by themselves without even getting a cdl using the “we have a driver shortage” excuse I’m not surprised. Swift is a perfect example of how this industry went from being an honorable profession to being a joke by forcing out the good veteran drivers who at least knew what they are doing and replacing them with room-temperature IQ idiots that I wouldn’t trust to drive a tricycle.... it’s painfully obvious the people who run swift and other POS mega training outfits like it could care less who gets killed to make a profit. After that incident involving one of Swift’s idiot training teams backing into me some years back, and the recent one with A CRST training team, there is no way, NO WAY I can ever be convinced these boated mega-training companies will ever be deserving of any kind of respect what so ever from me.

Their legions of poorly trained dimwits, the shoddy training & safety practices and philosophy of keeping massive turnover numbers while perpetuating the lie “we have a driver shortage” have all but destroyed this industry’s reputation.