Quick rundown on USA Truck

A lot of stuff is in limbo right now with the buyout. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect. Some lanes have shut down, some guys have left, a bunch of new policies (they're getting super strict on the fuel stops), they're opening up some new lanes, there's talk of regular runs out to Los Angeles and Phoenix now, there's a lot of brokered and spot freight while our contracts are up in the air, etc. Miles on the board are completely hit or miss at the moment, but part of that is probably because I'm not seeing as many of our regular customers. I had trouble getting home for an entire month and then the past few weeks the board is flooded with stuff going straight to my house.

Over the past couple months I've started seeing some odd locations I've never seen before. I do California loads with some regularity, but those are offered to me directly and do not appear on the board. Recently I've seen a handful of loads to CA and a couple to Cheyenne. Currently there are a couple to Colorado Springs and Duluth. I've seen a handful to the Denver area before but they're pretty rare, never even heard of our drivers going anywhere near Duluth. Maine was also on the board last month. Not sure if this is just filler while we work out the buyout or if this stuff is here to stay.

They are pushing guys to get TWIC and they recently told us they are expanding our hazmat business. Rumor is that we can expect a lot more loads off the ports and railyards. They're going to have to really increase my pay rate if they ever want to get me on the port of Long Beach again.

Oh and they're also taking our trucks down from 70mph to 68mph now. Our pay scale hasn't really moved since 2020 while the rest of the industry is surpassing us. I'm seeing similar pay rates at Danny Herman and Ashley which says a lot, slowing the trucks down might become a breaking point for me very soon.

They go off on hard braking, lane departure, or detected collisions. They're only going to call you about it if you were actually doing something stupid or had your cell phone in your hand. The last call I got was maybe 6 months ago for supposedly going through a stop sign, when the guy saw I had slowed to 1mph he laughed and said sorry for wasting my time. If you're a safe driver they will leave you alone. Trust me when I say they're too busy with the repeat offenders to bother safe drivers over dumb stuff.