Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Your phraseology and how you word things is exactly why I follow this thread. Your post here of which I replied being prime example.

 

Hey man, thanks for the kind words. I figure if y'all are gonna bother reading the stuff I write, I might as well try to make it entertaining.

 

Happy 4th!

 

We've had 3 liftgate trailers the entire time I've worked here. I've actually pulled them a couple times. Even operated the lift once!

 

Glad I found this chat space. How’s everything Drivers hope all is well with everyone. I just wanted to ask you all up about Abilene Motor. I just got my CDL and just was trying to see if it would be a good fit for me. I have an orientation day set with them on the 21st of this month. I’m out of the GA area. I spoke with my recruiter and I’m thinking on going with the regional area. I’m asking and seeking any and all advice on how they operate day to day. I’ll appreciate any and all advice (info) just need some insight from you all that have experience with them.

 

It's pretty much all regional around here these days.

They'll be running you out of Savanna and Piedmont. You'll probably also spend a lot of time at the Knight yard on the west side of Atlanta. Not sure what their lanes are down there anymore since I hardly ever get down there, but I expect you'll be running lots of stuff around the southeast, mainly Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina.

Abilene is a decent starter company for a new driver. There's a lot of horror stories you hear about what other drivers have to put up with that we don't have to put up with. Nobody will ask you to drive on bad equipment. Nobody will ask you to violate HOS. Nobody will ask you to drive overweight. Nobody will ask you to try and keep driving when you're falling asleep behind the wheel. That's not to say that you can't do those things on your own. I've done all of those things at various points in the past. But nobody at Abilene expects it from you. You're the captain of the ship. If you're blacking out behind the wheel from lack of sleep, pull over, call the office, tell them "I cannot safely make on-time delivery with this load because I can't stay awake," and they will tell you "Get some sleep. Get it there when you can."

They're very good about getting you home for hometime when you ask for it. They do occasionally give me a load assignment without checking to see that I've got hometime coming up, but all it takes to clear that up is a single phone call. "Hey man, they gave me this load, but I can't run it 'cause I got hometime coming up." Boom, sorted. I've been here 9 years, and have only had to get shirty with them about hometime a couple of times.

The level of micromanagement has been increasing over the past few years. We've got the road camera and the lane nannys and the collision detection, and they keep track of when your collision detector goes off. If the collision detector goes off, so does the road camera, and if they think you're the kind of driver that spends a lot of time riding someone's bumper, you'll get a phone call about it.

On the other hand, they got rid of the driver-facing cameras a few years back. And our routes aren't micromanaged. We're told where we have to be and when we have to be there, and the rest is up to us. Some other places (I am told) tell the driver exactly where to stop for fuel, when to take a 30 minute break, when and where to take a reset, etc. And if they take a 40-minute break instead of a 30-minute break, they'll get a phone call from their DM asking what's up. We don't have to deal with any of that. As long as you show up on time for your appointments and don't go way out of route, they're happy.

You typically will not have to fight them to get paid for a load. Sometimes mistakes are made, and it may take a phone call or three to get sorted. But nobody in the office is trying to maliciously screw you out of your money. The same cannot be said for layover. They've gotten a lot more stingy about layover over the past few years, and it can be kind of a pain to get them to pay you for sitting around because they didn't have anything for you to do.

In terms of average miles per week, it's hard to say, especially since you'll be running different lanes down there than I run up here from Richmond. And also because I don't push push push for all the miles I can get. I'm not trying to hit my full 11 every day. I'm happy to drive 8 hours in a day and knock off at 2:00pm when I can. If you're the kind of driver who wants to max out his 11 every day, well...you're probably not going to do that either. Just feels like loads these days have a lot more dead time padded into them than they used to, and we don't do cross-country routes anymore. But you'll probably get more miles than I do.

We get paid the same for all miles driven, whether loaded, empty, or bobtail. I've been told that some of those companies that advertise a lot more CPM than we pay only pay that CPM for loaded trailers. If the trailer is empty, or if you're bobtail, you get paid a lot less CPM. I've clocked 800 miles bobtail before, and got paid the same as if I was hauling freight.

The long and the short of it: If we're talking "driving OTR as a company driver", you can probably make more money driving for someone else. How much more money? $5k a year? $10k? I dunno. But you'll also have to put up with more hassles and headaches. It may be that those hassles and headaches don't bother you much as long as the money is good, but Abilene is an okay place to learn the ropes and figure out where you fall on the Money/Hassle spectrum before making your next move.

You could do a lot worse.

How's that for a ringing endorsement?

 

I ran PetSmart dedicated for Cardinal Logistics when I lived in AZ as my mom's part time caregiver. It was local in-state store deliveries from the DC right in Phoenix. I did two trailer loads per day (3 stores each) if I stayed in the Phoenix metro area, and one trailer (again 3 loads) if I ventured to the Tucson area or Kingman. It was the best trucking job I ever held. If they hadn't lost the account to CR England, I'd still be living out there smiling every day as I ran my routes.

Ultimately though, they lost the account, and I ended up on a crappy one. Then my mom passed away. After that, there was no real reason to stay out there and I moved back to PA where most of my family and friends still are.

 

Miles good last couple of weeks, hoping things pick up soon though. Since we don’t go west like we used to my miles have dipped along with boars head and reefers gone too. Delivering hill phoenix to a dollar tree in roanoke this morning, told me 0600 but nobody here yet. Hoping they didn’t tell me to show super early cuz they are paranoid of these coolers being late like other ones Ive been to, hate that, need to learn which drivers can trusted and which ones can’t be trusted cuz telling everyone to show early is ridiculous and military way of thinking, lol! Going home after to fix my house up til next week. Mom discovered it was my toilet line that broke and flooded my master bedroom and bathroom and seeped into the hallway. Had my mom let the plumber in last week to fix the broken toilet line and got water damage folks coming in tomorrow to clean up and insurance adjuster coming next week to look at the damage, hoping they will replace the carpet. Parking on the Wytheville yard and getting a rental car home then driving my jeep back down as Im going to start parking on the yard since mom sold her house and city won’t let me park the truck in front of my house. Mom will be staying with me temporarily til her new tiny house is built and set in place next to my brother and his wife’s place in CO. They can better take care of her than I since he is a pastor and home everyday plus her house was getting to big for her and too expensive to maintain on her own since she is disabled and having to do dialysis every night.