Oakley transport

Well I got accepted for tanker division out of Lake Wales, FL. Kinda bummed on what they offered me. I have x enforcement with twic. They said ill start out at .42 a mile for good grade loads and .47 for hazmat loads but if I got my passport it would be .47 for food grade loads and .52 for hazmat loads. They said there is a 2000 dollar sign on bonus. Orientation is 4 to 5 days at 125 a day and extra 300 if im on time to everything. Detention is 15/HR after first 2 hours. Every time I have to drop\pickup a new trailer i get 35 and anytime I pump to load I get 25. Said id be out for 3-5 weeks at a time with 1 day off for every week I'm out.

I also got an offer at Bynum at .45 a mile. Detention is 10 an hour after 2 hours hours. Didnt get much more info out of them as far as pay goes. They dont pump so no load/unload pay. They said it be out 3 weeks and home 3/4 full days. They said there drivers get between 2800 to 3200 miles.

One thing though is my medical card expired on 6/25/2020 and Bynum wants me to pay to get another before i go to orientation out of my own pocket. Then they want me to get another at orientation that they'll pay for. At first Bynum said it was bc my CDL could be reduced but i looked up online that in texas they arnt reducing CDL for expired medical card because of covid. I called her back to clearify that and she said she knew but wanted me to still get it. I thought that was BS.

Oakley has already set me up to get my DOT medical and drug test in the next city over and they are paying for it. They said to keep my gas receipt and they will reimburse me for gas bc it's 45min away. So that's way better than what Bynum will do.

I still need to talk to Indian River transport, Sherman Brothers and TriState. All seem interest and have scheduled phone interviews after running my information. I will keep updating.

 

I sent you a private conversation. Please respond back to me asap. Thanks bro.

 

Does Oakley pay practical miles ?

 

Well guys. I made it to orientation. I chose Oakley Transport.

Indian River Transport lied to me about home time or gave me several different stories... Look at it as you will. Then they couldn't respond back to my messages in a timely manner and when they did, it was like they didn't even read my messages. So those were all red flags. No thank you.

Sherman says i wasn't in their hiring area.

And TriState Motors wanted me to team drive with no say so one who my partner was. Didn't like that.

Oakley has been great though. Quick at responding and actually let me know what I needed to know when I asked. So i chose them.

They've paid for everything so far from my medical to my gas to do my medical. They bought me a plane ticket and flew me out to Orlando (United Airlines) where i got shuttled over to Lake Wales. The shuttle drive was about 1 hour long and they put us in Holiday Inn Express. Theres a small pool and gym here. I had to pay 35 for my bags on the plain trip but they reimburse up to 60. Should be getting that tomorrow. I talked about pay already but not sure how the miles work as far as actual miles or zip codec to zip code or city to city, im just not sure.

Today was my first day at orientation and we just talked about the basics. Went over paper work, general rules, Qualcomm and benefits. Also did the driver test which wasn't bas at all... We had eggs, hash browns, bacon and pan cakes for breakfast at Oakley classroom but the Holiday Inn also gave us a sack breakfast. I ate both. Sub sandwiches and chips for lunch. Tomorrow I know breakfast is coming from IHOP. Lasted from 7:15am to 5pm with hour lunch and plenty of breaks. Everyone seemed pretty cool. There were 8 of us. Im the youngest one by like 15 years.

I will ask tomorrow in class about the miles and I got a question about how they allow their driver to fuel. If there is anything you guys would like me to clear up, let me know and ill find out. Were going to get some good information about Oakley Transport in here guys. Also send me a private message if your going to apply. There some extra info id like to give you I don't want to put on these open forums. Thanks again guys!!

Well I'll keep yall updated as it goes on. Thanks guys.

 

Are you definitely doing tanker or are they pushing dry van?. A break down of what they pay as far as drop hook and layover etc would be great.

What did Indian River tell you about hometime that wasn't true?

 

Hey Redtwin, i covered the pay for drop/pick up in a couple post before this one. Ill ask about break down /layover pay.

I definitely am doing Tanker out of Lake Wales, FL. A few guys are doing dry van and and theres a couple local guys doing yard stuff here. But I am definitely tanker. No one has tried to push any thing on me. I Will keep y'all posted.

 

Ok. Day 2 of orientation is in the books. Today we covered a lot of Oakley policies and procedures which I will discuss, but first lets talk about my favorite part of the morning, food. We had the same as the first day. Eggs, bacon, and hashbrown but we has French toast instead of pancakes. And for lunch we had fried chicken with potatoe salad and macaroni salad. Forgot to mention they gave us cookies for dessert.

Now for orientation. We went over how to get access to our pay and how to make sure we do what we need to to get paid. Easy enough.

We talked about fueling, which I know someone asked about. They want us to try to fuel 100% at Loves. They said in occasions were we can't fuel at loves, they'll approve us to fuel somewhere else. But only enough to get us to a loves. I don't mind because that'll make it easier to accumulate points and there are Loves everywhere. They also said the trucks have RFID stickers that Loves fuel islands will regonise so we dont have to swipe our COMDATA cards. Thats cool.

We talked about PrePass. The trucks do use it. They said most toll roads are covered but some in rare occasions they are not. They have a sheet we can print out to verify. They also said 100% percent of HAZMAT loads will have to go threw 100% of weigh stations no matter what PrePass says. They said its because there are 6 states that require all HAZMAT loads to scale. I personally think it would be easy to learn those 6 states and continue following PrePass. Idk how that'll work but I might have to try it.

They talked about how to handle maintenance and repairs.

They also talked about their I-Shift transmissions ans how to/how not to use them.

Talked about truck washes. There are xertain precautions they want us to take bc we are food grade.

Talked about truck permits and paperwork, especially hauling liquor loads. But HAZMAT training is tomorrow.

Talked about what to do and how to handle accidents. Which lead into our safety bonus. Without going into much detail, you can earn an extra .02 - .06 a mile per month for safe driving determined by a forward facing camera / driving monitoring system. They said its not to hard to get. We will see.


We went over defensive driving and not a whole lot of other things... They told me tomorrow I can find out about layover/break down pay.

Well anymore questions guys, let me know. Now is the time. I got to walk go the store before it pours cats and dogs and get a work out in before bedtime. I'll keep y'all updated as always. Drive safe truckers.

Couple jokes I picked up in Orientation.
Why does SWIFT drive the extra mile? Because they missed the turn.
What's the difference between fairy tales and trucker stories? Fairy tales start out with, "Once upon a time." Trucker stories start out, "Your not going to believe this ####." Haha

 

First I am hearing about the hazmat/scale thing. I have only done 1 hazmat load so far but I just did what the prepass told me to do. You would think those 6 states would have signs up saying all hazmat must enter scales etc.

Pretty cool about the RFID thing at Loves. Never knew that was available. Loves is our preferred fuel stop but I don't like them much because they tend to be smaller and most of them don't have laundry facilities.

Sounds like it's going good so far. Oakley was at the top of my list when I was applying, but I wasn't interested in dry van which was all they had at the time.

 

I didnt think about the laundry thing... But honestly. You can usually fuel while your getting in a 30, and no I wont hog up the fuel Isles haha. And then sleep somewhere else... So I can understand your frustrations but I can't see it being a big deal...

I said the same exact thing about the RFID with loves Redtwin... Haha. And I worked there for a year. Go figure.

And about the HAZMAT PrePass. They told us PrePass has no idea what your hauling so you can't trust it hauling HAZMAT. They did mention there are usually signs alerting all HAZMAT drivers enter but you know how that goes with some truck drivers... Steering wheel holders. Haha..

Who'd you go with Redtwin.

If your not happy where you are, id say keep trying. They said they are trying to grow. And remember to PM me before you apply like I mentioned!

 

I do the same thing fuelling on my 30. We are allowed to use PC while on a 30 min break so it's no big deal if I have to vacate the fuel island and do a lap of the parking lot if someone needs the pump. We can use PFJ and Petro/TA but for limited amounts do I try to keep a shower credit active at those too.

I went with Indian River. GTS never got back to me and Bynum, well, their trucks just always seem to look raggedy so I didn't bother applying. The Bynum driver I spoke to not so long ago kinda implied it was a good thing I didn't.

I was disappointed in the miles at first but from talking to other drivers it appears to be the norm for food service for now, so I may as well stay put and see how things go.