I spoke to PrePass today and got their explanation on a few things

"As far as TMC not paying their bills -- well, that's not just prepass, they have that reputation amongst many of their vendors as well and i've heard it first hand from many of them" see, now you're doing it. reputation of not paying their bills?? kind of hard for a company with over 2,000 trucks in business since 1972 to operate when they're not paying their bills isn't it? nothing wrong with a healthy debate, but you need to stick to facts that you can prove. i've had a number of breakdowns such as blown tires, blown turbo, thrown drive belts, etc, etc and never once have i had a shop tell me they weren't going to repair the truck because tmc didn't pay their bills. like i agreed with earlier tmc ain't perfect but don't throw around statements that can't be substantiated just like "silly new rules that are being implimented to increase their bottom line while sacrificing driver productivity" what silly rules?? you don't drive for tmc anymore but i do and i have no idea what these silly rules are. nothings changed for me. matter of fact i get encouraged all the time to increase my productivity and i'm grateful for it! my last company was werner and i never even talked to my fleet manager except maybe when i put in my notice by the way, ONCE AGAIN, i dont pay for the toll roads. ur right that these are tmc's bill and that's why they do pay me for them. man i gots to get off the computer and enjoy what's left of my wknd!! on the road again........

 

I'm not sure how long you've been with TMC but here are just a few of the silly changes that were made in the time i was with them that decreased driver efficiency quite a bit.

Fuel solution - This is where they give you a fuel stop that is "cheapest" on your route, and you pick up x amount of gallons as opposed to planning your own trip, going the way you want to go, and filling up when you need to as opposed to stopping multiple times like was often suggested. (i never did it, though)

A while back they made it so you needed to make an appointment to get your tarps repaired, or to get replacement equipment.

They have always refused to pay for 80/90 Through Indiana and Ohio, even though the fact that it was faster, and usually safer had been brought to their attention numerous times, also decreased wear and tear on the vehicles (set the cruise, and go) instead of stop and go burning the fuel and the breaks up.

Switching to Trans Flo from trippaks this was another one. It was much faster to drop an envelope in the box and get it out of the way, instead we ended up waiting in line, and while this is a very small and sometimes miniscule change, the wait times seemed to vary and were sometimes much longer than needed. We only have 11 hours in a day to drive, every minute counts, especially when you've been at the shipper for 4 hours waiting to get loaded. Yes, there are ways to plan for this, as well as ways to plan on getting comchecks for tolls, but when there is a faster, easier way for drivers to do all of these things and they won't allow you to that's what i mean by "decreasing production to increase their bottom line". Just because it's cheaper doesn't nescessarily mean that it's better. There is nothing that says you already know where you're going when you get fuel for the day, so paying the fee for the comcheck may also be required one day, are they going to reimburse that?

Road repair has always been huge on trying to get "the best deal". The thing about that instance i described is that my truck was in the shop, and repaired within the same hour.. The additional 6 hours was waiting on TMC to pay the shop before they would allow me to leave with the truck. I've had numerous run-ins with road repair where they ended up spending money that wasn't nescessary to spend in order to find the "cheapest" fix as opposed to just listening to the driver who drives the truck every day when he tells them exactly what the problem was. Nothing wrong with saving money, but making a driver sit around instead of making money is.. well, yeah.

Turning off the Quallcom while the truck is in motion was a big one for trainers like myself, because it was useful to fill out my needed macro's while my trainee was driving and we were already on the road.

The CabGuards where you're supposed to fit "everything" that don't have enough room to do so efficiently, especially not in the winter time.

How about the dreaded "Your trailer needs to be serviced"
Are they still doing this? Because the last time i serviced a trailer i was there for 4 hours waiting for TMC to "authorize" a new tire.This is not exactly a new policy, but it's a big hit. After a while i'd tell my FM to find me a drop and hook, and refused to service the trailer because it was UNPAID time that they can control.I won't even bring up the lack of detention pay that's been exsistant since I started.
No more Prepass And this is the big one that started this whole discussion. It speaks for itself, this is a huge hit in efficiency and many drivers here agree. Now as far as paying for tolls, I never said that they diddn't, but why should you plan your fuel stops around com-checks, and then spend your time waiting around instead of driving? It's not that it's not feasible, it sure is.. But it definitely isn't economical. The other alternative to that is the "loan" them the money (but make sure you fill out the paperwork 100% perfect, or you'll never get the money back! Don't make a mistake!) and even then it's added to your taxable income, so you don't get the entire amount paid for. Needless to say even assuming all goes well it still takes a week or two to see that money back that you loaned them to conduct their business, and I haven't talked to many TMC drivers that have the spare cash laying around to pay tolls with.

My comment about you paying the tolls added up to that 2.00 a week, you are essientially paying for part of the tolls for that truck, or you're paying for the priveledge of having your tolls paid in a timely, productive fashion, either way it's their responsibility. What about the weeks when you diddn't run on any toll roads? You still paid for it, right? How's that fair? That's like making you rent your load secrurement equipment, in my opinion. It's a tool to function productively and is supplied by the company you drive for, that is responsible for the freight getting from point a. to point b. whether you're the one that happens to be driving it, or not.

The argument is not weather or not it's possible for the driver to function in this kind of environment, the argument is weather or not you should have to. There is no way they are actually saving any significant amount by not using prepass any longer, moreover it's taking many of the drivers longer to get loads to their destination because of this change, which means that their bottom line has now gone down, so however you chose to look at it, it was a dumb move.

I could think of more i'm sure. Coming from Werner, i'm sure TMC is alot better and again they aren't a bad company but you asked for some examples so here they are. "matter of fact i get encouraged all the time to increase my productivity and i'm grateful for it!" Encouragement is different than what we're talking about here actually, i was encouraged too, and i made #### good money with them.

you don't drive for tmc anymore but i do and i have no idea what these silly rules are.

Then you are either oblivious, happy with making 400.00 a week (coming from werner i could see why) or you hired when all these rules were already in place, which would make them normal to you, and not new like they were to me, or the people i've trained that i still talk to every day.. You don't need to drive for someone to stay current and up to date, i have alot of friends still with TMC and they are all ready to leave. I guess that after years and years of making great money and enjoying their time on the road they just suddenly developed a bad attitude.

Anyway, this is "the inside scoop" and i was stating my opinion. You are welcome, ofcourse, to disagree. But i suggest you go to the "my favorite trucking company is..." thread, because it seems like you are happy there, which is a good thing. But personally i won't go back, because I know what it was like before, and alot has changed, i think drivers have enough to worry about on a daily basis for them to continually add to it because it "looks" cheaper on paper.

 

Also i was thumbing through and i noticed you said this

"One of these drivers above is on another post right now complaining about paying a comchek fee for a cash advance. Gee, last time I checked trucking companies are not banks"

He was referring to getting a comcheck to pay the tolls that they are responsible for. If that's the route they chose to go then the fee's should be their responsibility, not the drivers.

 

They want the money up front from companies who have a history of not paying their bill. So if they asked for money up front from TMC then that means TMC didn't pay their bill. They are not requiring money up front from companies that have paid their bill, assuming that CPL's post was correct, which I don't see any reason for him to lie about it.

Cable companies, phone companies, etc. All institute a similar policy after you've gone any length of time without paying your bill, you need to pay a deposit one month ahead of time to get it reactivated, typically this deposit is whatever your average monthly bill was for x amount of time.

 

man, you're really scraping bottom trying to come up with reasons why tmc is so bad. i'd say it's no wonder you're not driving anymore. i doubt you'd be happy anywhere. since you're such a savvy business man it sounds like you need to start your own trucking company and then drop us all a line 6 months later and let us know what its like to run your own business. you're right though, i'll jump over to the my favorite trucking company post and leave you here to complain and moan about why you're not a truck driver anymore. sure glad you wasn't my trainer when i started here. good luck to you though.

 

Believe i said numerous times that they weren't a bad company.

It was you, after all that asked for examples to back up my statements, so there, now you have them, I also diddn't say that any of them made them a bad company, but i did say that they decreased driver efficiency, it has nothing to do with being "business savvy" it's called common sense.

By the way, i diddn't come here complaining, my stent on this thread consisted of replying to CPL based on what he said he heard from prepass and then responding to you accusing everyone of whining. You're new to the forums and obviously know nothing about me or how I'm usually the one being bluntly honest and defending TMC even though I no longer drive for them. So as far as needing to "scrape for reasons that they're a bad company" everyone but you already knows that's a silly statement, I was happy with TMC and was going to go back, until i heard of this. Yay! More unpaid time wasted.

Let me reiterate.

What?.. You don't even know me. I come up with a well presented argument and spend my time digging up the examples that you ask for, and this is all you can conjure up? I'm highly dissapointed. It's awesome how childish people can become when they get stuck without a good argument. The fact that i no longer drive isn't even relevant here, the fact still remains that TMC was a much better place to work 4 years ago, and thus my point all along, not that they were a horrible company that will rob you and steal your wife as you keep implying, clearly reading beyond anything that's really being said. it's no wonder that you do drive, because right now you're acting like the typical truck driving stereotype to me. Do you fist fight over parking spots too?

 

i just came across a post you did on jan 23rd in the TMC Acquisition/Firings thread. you replied to rawlco that you were part of the driver terminations of those tmc was having problems with (i sailed right through that period, nobody said a word to me). now we really are getting to the "rest of the story" aren't we??? now it all makes sense.

 

You know what they say about assumptions.

At this point I don't even think he's bothered to read anything I've been saying. I never even brought up the massive amount of money they saved by terminating me, or the fact that they mysteriously stopped paying on my school loan 1.5 years ago without bothering to let anybody know. I had about 4 Trainee's on the road, 3 of which were merely weeks away from getting their 6 months accident free time, and would've each paid me 800, or 650 or 700 or whatever it was i forget dollars. How Ironic, the timing.

Or the fact that i was told by my FM the day that it happened "Re-apply in a month when things settle down, I don't see anything in the computer that you've done wrong or even a reason for termination on here. They are trying to save some money on health insurance, and the rates just went up." They also diddn't deny my unemployment, or put anything negative on my DAC. They diddn't give the unemployment office a reason for termination at all.

My proof? A while later they raised the drivers rate for health insurance. and i was in fact rehired but changed my mind on going back. I hold no grudges to them, I did very much enjoy my time with TMC, i made great money, was good friends with my FM and drove nice equipment that was taken care of, i was home every weekend even if they had to send me home empty and spend money on fuel for it. Doesn't change the fact that the economy is so screwed up right now no matter who you drive for. I saw on one of your threads that you were making 6-800 a week, assuming you aren't a trainer and came from werner that might seem like good money to you, but i'm not going back to driving with the economy like it is, it has very little to do with TMC and more how things are changing lately with the DOT constantly pushing harder to waste even more of our unpaid time, and freight being so slow, i'm also not willing to pay out of pocket to buy a TWIC card to benefit them without any form of reimbursement (assuming that rumor is true) or to deal with the whole prepass dilemma.

Ofcourse, if i merely came here to whine you probably would've heard all that already, right?

My opinion is that you aren't getting the whole story on the prepass scenario. They were making 24k a month just off of drivers 2.00 a week and somehow had a problem paying for pree pass? Weather personal reasons like a disagreement or financial reasons like brought up earlier it's a big step backward in productivity, and even Harrold himself was talking about how UNFAIR it was that his drivers couldn't run hot anymore but insisted that the competition always was, and that we had the DOT so far down on us that the "playing feild wasn't level", so why make a move like this and set yourself at a further disadvantage? It makes little sense if you really think about it. If you don't believe Harrolds quotes, try to find some past driver issues meeting minutes, you'll see what i'm talking about. If pre pass was really screwing companies over in some way, I think alot more than TMC would be pulling out, and i haven't read anything about anyone else yet, have you?

Also:

When did i ever imply that there WAS a "rest of the story"?

Lastly:

I was also on a dedicated account that was downsized a month after and the two trucks that myself and another driver were terminated from haven't been refilled yet. What exactly are you implying?