Stevens Transport

you're a comedian @LowBeam

 

They had a lady from Steven on road dog channel in SiriusXM. She was talking about their training process and how the drivers go through various trainers B4 they are on their own. After 6 months they can apply to be trained as trainers. They got several irate veteran drivers call in to tell the how messed up that is. Even when they changed guests, people were still calling in pissed about the Stevens lady.
I do remember seeing a Stevens truck one winter sideways on an inclined off ramp. But stuff happens

 

If he has 2 years experience why is he screwing around with a bottom feeder like Stevens?

 

All this drama. Goodness,

But, I have an idea what's happening.

OP, Does the boy owe you money, and this is the story you're getting why he can't pay?

Why is this your problem otherwise?

 

"Is it me or is Stevens not so good to work for? "

• You will find good and bad with any company. Stevens is a training company. Nobody really goes there for longevity though there are a few who do and succeed or fail depending on their attitude and work ethic. You only get what you put into any job.

"My son is now reporting they are screwing him on miles driven and thus his pay!!! "

• Stevens, much like any other trucking company pays zip code to zip code aka household goods miles. Some even refer to it as "mover's miles". Does your son have a high out of route mileage issue? Those aren't paid. From a former independent lease operator, those out of route miles can get expensive. You don't get the actual odometer miles on your settlement. Does he take cash advances? Those too have to be paid back unless he's using them for truck related expenses (if he's a company driver), then he's reimbursed on his settlement. Is he blowing his loads and being late? Does he try and go straight to dispatch for his loads? If the DM is the problem, he can request a new one. If he and his DM aren't on the same page, then he's going to have a miserable time. Communication is the key in this career.

"By getting all the negatives from him, it seems that they have no ####ing idea what they are doing!!!"

• I failed at this company back in 2015. It was nobody's fault but my own. However, I took everything I learned at Stevens Transport, applied it at my last few OTR jobs and I was successful until I ran into other issues and had to let it go. I miss it some days but fate had other plans. If your son has been a driver for two years as you say, then he should know the ins and outs and the do's and don'ts of being a driver. As I stated above, Stevens is a training company. Hardly any one with that amount of experience would touch them unless they've been out of the game for a while and needed a refresher. Also, trucking companies are in business to make money, not babysit their drivers. I hate to sound like an #######, but I feel that there's a lot of things your son probably isn't telling you. In the short five months I was driving for Stevens, I made great money. And that was at $0.28 a mile. I took every load and ran every mile. I screwed up. I'd still do their training and driving again just with a different attitude.

Understand that I'm not standing up for Stevens. I'm just sharing experience from my time in the OTR gridiron. I miss it some days but I'm unable to go back due to personal issues. I wish your son all of the best though.

 

It means he can get rid of the terrible dispatcher.. also did you forget the word fire !?

 

Drives can fire their dispatchers. It just means ask for a new one. I've done it a few times.

 

Well, I guess this is my chance to contribute something useful on these forums since I did 10 months at Stevens.

The GOOD
They train the hell out of you. I am very thankful that I started there. Yeah, at first they micro-manage you, but it is only for your own good. It helps you build good habits. I would hire anyone who started at Stevens and did a year there. Because I know what it took to make it to that point.

The BAD
1- Yes, they do pay zip-to-zip. And RARELY does it work out in the driver's favor. I once figured it out and I was getting screwed out of at least $60 a week on average.

2- You will have to keep an eye on your settlements like a hawk and fight for every last dollar. If they can screw you, they WILL. I was fighting frequently over stuff like accessorials and never backed down. I was one of their best drivers, so I usually got my way. I posted a funny story about one incident somewhere on these forums. If you guys want, I'll talk about it again on this thread.

3- It's true that you will have a hard time getting ahold of your DM. But that is normal with the megas, because the DM usually manages up to a couple of dozen drivers. My pet peeve was that after I delivered a load, I had to wait a long while before getting another load. I'm restless by nature and hate sitting around, so this drove me nuts. But I solved that problem by taking initiative. When I got back to Dallas after a 5-week stint on the road, I went around HQ and got the phone extensions of every #### load-planner in the building and the areas they covered. So whenever I delivered a load anywhere, I immediately contacted the load-planner for the area I was in. I would even sometimes call them a day in advance and say for instance, "Hey Earl, I'm going to be empty in the meat patch tomorrow at 1030. What you got?" My DM loved me because it alleviated his burden. So basically I managed myself. He tried everything in his power to keep me from quitting. But I had had enough of the never-ending circus.

But if you can do a year at Stevens, you can do anything. After I quit, I went to Melton. I had never done flatbed, obviously. But my first full month there I made Top 100, which is a big thing there. I was #87 out of 1378 drivers. I attribute that to the training and good habits I built at Stevens.

Tell your son to not let himself be pushed around and to stand up and fight for himself. If he's worth it, he will win.

 

In my opinion, there are no truly good OTR careers, just varying levels of bad. Stevens is a training company with a less-than-stellar reputation in the industry. They tend to treat even veteran drivers with minimal autonomy and play games to see how much they can exploit. Additionally, they are a reefer company, which, in my considerable experience, involves more unpaid work and wasted time compared to running dry box. If my son were driving a truck in 2025, I would advise him not to sell himself short and to seek out a company that pays by the hour, ensuring those long hours are at least fully compensated.