Watkins shepard

Thanks thats good to know.

 

Thanks for your response. Since I live in western PA, when I do apply, and if I do get hired, I guess I'd have a similar running area as yours. I like the idea of multiple stops, as it breaks the monotony of continuous driving. What is the stop pay like, and, on an average, what is the duration of each stop ? How often do you need to tailgate loads, and what does that pay ? Also, what's your hometime like ? Thanks, once again.

 

u can run alll 48 states if you want, i am an otr driver, however, i run the east and have a great relationship with the disp out here, most of our drivers refuse to do a single stop, which is why i am always running out here haha
our stop pay out of our conover nc and sayreville nj terminal is $20 flat rate, you may only have 1 stop, or youll have upwords to 30+ stops,
hometime for me, and again i can only speak for myself, i typiclly stay out for a solid month, then go home. never an issue, usually with everyone in the company, if you ask to go home with in a day or 2 they have you working your way home..

 

I wanted to tell my recent experience with WS. Just to let everyone know they are not ALL peaches and cream over there. I just finished CDL school. Through Western Pacific Truck School in Kent, WA. I called WS before going to the school to make sure it was on their *approved list*. Shortly after starting school they notified me that I was scheduled for the Feb 15th orientation in Missoula. Over the next few weeks while attending school they kept in contact with me and the placement lady at the school. Faxing, emailing, phoning etc. making sure everything was in order. Green lights all the way. I finished school on the 2nd, my grades were faxed to Sandy. Excellent grades I might add. The safety officer called 2 days ago, asked some routine questions all of which were positive. He said it all looked good. Then yesterday I got a call from Matt. Out of the blue they tell me that due to the economy and all the applications they have, they will not be hiring me. I'm like Wha???? after all this time, and me already being considerate and telling the other companies that I'd applied to that I was going with WS, they wait untill practically the last minute to tell me this bit of news. Now I am faced with trying to reactivate my applications with the other companies. Needless to say, I'm not real pleased with WS at the moment.
Just my 2 cents.

 

Bummer, sorry that happened to you dude. Good luck finding a job though.

 

In trucking you never have a job until they hand you the keys.

 

Well spoken, sir. It's apparently true.

 

Excellent point. To piggy back off of this I would add the following;

Just because you get sent a bus ticket and show up for orientation does not mean you have been hired either. Carriers will routinely wait until a prospective employee gets to orientation to do a thorough background check. It is pretty common for drivers to be eliminated during the orientation process due to "falsified apps, criminal records, positive drug screens, failed physicals, failed road tests, etc."

Challenge any of the speakers in orientation about policies and you may find yourself and your belongings on the sidewalk.

In the event you are starting out at a new company be sure to have enough money on hand to last a week for your own food and enough money for a bus ticket home. Just because a carrier gave you a bus ticket to get there does not mean they will give you one to send you home.

 

I'd been told the same thing by many a driver here on the truckersreport forums. Be sure you have a plan (and the money) for getting home if you are not allowed to complete any company's orientation. One nice thing about Watkins is that they will pay for you to get the physical, drug test and performance test done locally before you show up for orientation.

 

WHAT AN INDUCTION INTO THE WORLD OF TRUCKING:::::::hey all my w/s connections SOOOOOOO heres a brief recap of my first week and a half out of the 10 day orientation at Missoula, So I got to my truck in Sante Fe Springs and had to wait for 4 days for it at the shop--- it needed to have some things done to it to make it safe to drive and not get redflagged---which I might add they fixed or changed everything on my long list---- BiG Kudos to Ramone at the SFS shop.
Soooo my first load I went from Sante Fe Bprings,CA to Birmingham, AL then unloaded then I was on my way to Dalton,GA to drop and hook a trailer to Richmond ,KY,.. all sounds good so far right ??/!! wrong ------ on the north I59 in Georgia I was sitting in stopped traffic due to a fatality ahead of me about 500 yards and a couple rearended my truck at 70mph !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in their minivan, ......it took emergency crews over 2 hours to get the guy out of the car, (his wife was extracated fairly quickly and transported via ambulance- I later found out she was going to be OK) as of then the husband was still alive but in bad shape, steering wheel and dash were in his stomach and lap ,,they had to shut down both sides of the 59 and land a life flite helicopter on the interstate, they had to jack up my trailer to get it off the front of the car so they could pull his vehicle out form underneath the trailer (when he hit the trailer it lifted the whole back of the trailer up and it came back down on the top of the car) , then they had to cut apart the minivan and roof to extracate him, the impact was so severe that it bent my seat back , slammed the back of my head against the cabinet, knocked everything in the truck around , all the stuff on the dash got thrown off and whiplashed my back..
I had turned on my flashers about a 1/4 mile back (so no one would rear end me) but unfortunatley it didnt work. A truck driver came around the front of me and stopped to give assistance, he said the brake lights never came on in the car that hit me , and the speed limit there is 70 mph ...... that was the longest 53 feet I have ever had to walk --- when I stepped out onto my step and looked back and saw that debris field and crumpled car under the trailer I thought for sure I was going to walk back and see dead, smashed bodies --- I almost didnt want to go back there , but I did and both were alive but BADLY injured. After nearly 4 hours of being out there on the interstate (which was shut down in both directions for nearly 4 hours) ----then the state troopers had to tow my rig and trailer to an impound yard in Chattanooga,TN because even though it wasnt my fault ---but, because it was a semi it had to go through a DOT inspection and review in morning... so then I had to stay at a hotel in Chattanooga,TN until the next day, and meet with insurance person, terminal manager, state trooper etc.. THANKFULLY I had all the problems to my truck fixed IN Sante Fe Springs and my truck PASSED the DOT inspection,,,,,whew ..I can only imagine what would have been the outcome if they found issues with my trcuk,,, so anyway my check engine light had came on in AR, and the shop told me to keep driving until I got to the next repair shop then the Dalton shop had to have me drive it to truck repair shop in Dalton ,( the problem was that one of the fuel injectors was bad and others were acting up ...so now I sit here in another hotel in Dalton until at least Monday.... ( 3 hotels coming back from 10 day, hotel in Chattanooga, and now hotel for days in Dalton) ---- I must add that W/S has been there every step of the way at all times when needed,, that was a great comfort knowing that I was'nt just a driver #- another reason I chose W/S - their reputation of being and treating drivers fairly and knowing who they are.
IN retrospect I am glad the minivan hit me... BECAUSE if they had'nt of hit me , they would have rearended the stopped car in front of me at full speed AND that would have no doubt burst one, two or three cars into flames ( a car traveling at 70 mph and hitting a stopped car is quite an impact) and surely people would have perished ,,, and possibly me because the impact would have been right next to me and its hard saying if the collision would have drove them into my left fuel tank and possibly blow me up or catch me on fire also????!!!!!
So I want to think that by getting rearended----lives of others were spared.. quite the sombering induction into the world of trucking, they say every trucker at one point in his life will undergo some kind of horrific accident in one way or another -----------mine all just happened in my first trip..

and BTW the crash I was stopped for was from another trucker that got rearended 500 yards ahead of me.......unfortunaltely the driver of that car was killed,,, and the trucker left the scene so now they are looking for him as a hit and run,,,,

AND always check your truck for safety issues before you leave because----- you NEVER know what is gonna happen!!!