Heartland Express, Inc. - Coralville, Ia.?

So other than forcing drivers to run all night over hours,having to fuel at HL term's-no more free showers,screwed up load planning,having my pay messed up and having to stay in a rat trap motel during orientation,also no pay for orientation and no sign on bonus.Is there any other reasons to avoid HL.

 

No, I dont think so. Wana go try them out?

 

1) you don't want to work for a co that routes you, we are professionals and have been finding addresses for many years.
2) heartland does not have good pay, the first few weeks they gave me good miles. The first time I needed more than 1 day off to get things fixed on my truck, my miles went down to 2200 a wk.
3) they say you get home every 2 wks, you have to pay them to get home every weekend. No problem 2 wks is ok, then they send you in the opposite direction of the house on fri. of your weekend to go home til late afternoon. Now you go load for home and drive 400 mi home, its now sat am, then you have to leave sun am to del on time. 1 day off every 2 wks is NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
4) Do not hire on to a co based on cents per mi. I left heartland for the co I'm leased to now a lot less per mi. but I make a lot more $$ now with the good mi, literally no wasted time away from home. I now average home every 5 days. and they ask me when I want to deliver. Best of all I sleep every night whether I need to or nor when I want to not when hl tells me to. I actually have time and $ now to go camping and work on my classic trucks.

 

Come on, you can't give that much information and not tell us who it is you are leased to. SOme of us are looking to get into the o/o game ya know

 

First let me say that I have never driven for Heartland and never expect to. When you read my second point you will understand why.

2 Things

#1 Just don't call them on the phone; there is a quelcom in the truck for a reason use it to YOUR advantage. You should only need to use the phone if it is more convent for you. Such as a breakdown or unexpected delay. For you new drivers out there this is an important point. I don't care what company you drive for. If it isn't in writing it DIDN'T happen. Make them send the load plan across the Quelcom so that there is a record. Back before there were on board computers it was your word against the displacers. As long as the dispatcher was making the company money the company would always take their word over yours. With on board computers you have a record.



The D.O.T. pulls those records when they do a company audit. By law the company has to show those records when requested. If you are prone to running off the books this can come back to bight you in the butt. Every time you set the air-breaks the Quelcom records the time, and location of your truck. If you are in an accident or your file is pulled by the D.O.T. in a company inspection, and your logbook doesn't match the Quelcom data your screwed. By law that data MUST be kept for 6 months, and made available to the D.O.T. You can get a logbook fine for something you did 4 or 5 months ago.

On the other side of things, if you make the dispatcher put EVERYTHING on the OBC you can prove to the company, D.O.T., and even a Court Of Law EXACTLY what you were told to do. If you are fired for refusing to haul a load that you cannot legally haul. You WILL be able to get unemployment while you look for another job. You have the right to subpoena the Quelcom records.

#2 I would never work for Heartland based on the way their recruiter talked to me the last time I talked to him. It seems he got pissed off because I had talked to him a year before, and he sent me an application. I didn’t send it back, for reasons that were frankly none of his business. He was down right nasty with me on the phone. I figured if they speak that way to someone who is looking to maybe come to work for them. I certainly didn't want to work there. BTW the job I was thinking about applying for was a regional position.
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Just my 2 cents
Storm Crow[/FONT]

 

I see a lot of HL's new "Cornbinders" IHC 9400I hi rise trucks here in New England.There stripped,not even "EAGLES"

 

Well,I gave them a try.I lasted untill the end of the first day of orientation.I started getting a bad feeling about this company after a couple hours into orientation.The first indication that I wasn't going to last here was when the instructor (who by the way was my instructor at National truck driving school in Greencove Springs,Fl) asked me if I plan to go home or am I ready to run wednsday afternoon on the last day of orientation.My answer was that I will be ready to run on Thursday morning.He asked why couldn't I be available on wednsday.I told him after we're done and I load my truck with my gear it will be too late to get started .He said that we will start at noon and I could get extra sleep before arriving.He also mentioned, we get done by 1600 that will be when I start my 14 hour clock for the day.That should give me plenty of time to take a load and run a full eleven.I told him that I doubt I'll be able to sleep past 0700 and after being up all day I would be too tired to run wednsday night.I would prefer to get a fresh start the next morning.He said he would ask if this will be ok. The next problem I had was when the instructor asked us to fill out a sheet that had a recap for the past 7 days.On this recap the hours section was already filled in with zero's.He then instructed us to put in the dates for the last seven days including the days we were in orientation.After doing that we were to sign this piece of paper stating the hours on it were correct.My problem with that was that I thought orientation was concidered by the DOT as on duty time not off duty.I didn't want to falsify a log ,so I didn't complete this piece of paper.I guess this is why they don't pay you for your time in oreintation.I'll check with the DOT about this and update you later. The other little problems I had were that you must share a motel room with someone I didn't know.(nothing personal.but,I gave up showering or sleeping in the same room as another dude when I left the military.) Also the fueling at HL terminals only thing didn't do much for me either.Seems like alot of OOR and late loads because I had to stop by a terminal for fuel and got stuck in a line waiting to go into the inspection bay before fueling.Also I kinda like the driver pay back points I get by fueling at a truck stop.Also I prefer to shower at a truck stop,at least they make an attempt to clean the showers.The last problem is they offer .50 cpm on their advertisement.But, they only pay .47 cpm to system drivers.Oh yeah,one more thing to think about.If you get hurt and can't drive.Don't worry about getting bored sitting around the house waiting to heal.HL is such a charitable company that they will put you to work doing community service working in a hospital or some other charity while you wait to return to driving. Other than that I guess HL is a fine company for someone that is money hungry enough to put up with all their BS.Well time to scratch another one off the list.

 

So glad I read this thread...almost went with them.

 

I called HL About a job about a year ago. the recruiter was very rude. Just got one word answers. it seemed the more questions I asked the more rude he got, needless to say i just said thankyou and hung up. to me the way the trucking industry is now,and how bad everyone needs drivers, if the recruiters are rude, to me that would be a clue to how rude the operations department would be. the least they should do is be helpful and aswers any questions you have, I mean isnt that there job? I know when i went in the military the recruiter was kissing your a#$, even if he knew that you may be a waste of time..maybe trucking recruiters should hang with the military recruiters for a day to see how they should act!! JMO..

 

I drove for Heartland in the mid 90's, for a very short time. Signed on to run regional out of Columbus Oh, 2700 miles per wk, no further east than Carlisle and Dubois Pa. I averaged about 1800 miles a wk and was in south Philly and New Jersey every week. Sit all day to pick up a load going 350 miles, 4 hrs to live load, 4 hrs to live unload. They made the job sound very attractive but it was all BS.