Covenant Transport - Chattanooga, Tn.

My wife and I started driving for Covenant in May of 2006. We teamed until November when she had to go home to look after her teenage son who needed to get out of his father's house. He's a great kid and as good as it was for us to work together, it is better with him around.
As my wife got off the truck I fell into a dedicated route in the southeast. I was promised 2400 miles paid minimum each week as long as I was always ready to roll. I remained ready to roll for the first three weeks, but the truck needed several repairs during this time. It had been mistreated and driven hard, it was filthy. I averaged about 700 miles each of those three weeks and was at the mercy of the ragged truck. I was not paid promised guarenteed minimum mileage. After that I started getting loads and was trying to figure out how am I going to be able to achieve better than 2400 miles when I spend 80% of my time rolling 55 mph state highways where I have to travel through 35 to 45 mph zones going through little towns in AR, LA, MS, TX, OK, TN, and GA. I tried to move myself enough miles and then log myself according to how long it would take me to drive the distance at 60mph or so. I never really got it right. All of a sudden I got a new lane: OK to AZ. a thousand miles out with ten to nineteen thousand pounds, a thousand miles back with 44400
pounds of beverages. 20 hours out 20 hours in. At first it was terriffic. just a few mountains, mostly straight, flat, and wide. Suddenly Covenant lets me know that there is no longer any guarenteed minimum mileage pay.
Then my beverage pickup becomes live load instead of drop hook. I average six hours to get a truckfull of gatorade. I send in the request for 3 to 4 hours of detention pay and I am informed that high mileage dedicated routes do not get detention pay, extra stop pay, layover pay, or guarenteed minimum mileage. Holy Crap! I drive for mileage only. I wait an average of 24 hours to get a load out of AZ. Then I sit for 5 to 6 hours waiting for the shipper to load me. I get to Dallas TX and wait 5 to 6 hours in line to unload, and they are closed on weekends. (I can drop at a terminal on weekends). I unload, then wait until the next evening to get a load either from dallas to OK or I empty move to OK and do an 85 mile short haul. Then I have about 15 or 20 hours left HOS. I do a restart. I call my dispatch and say, gee this is kinda sucking, He says, well you do have the best run around. Please someone tell me if this sounds normal. I have a good chance to work for a company called Washita Freight System, anybody ever heard of them, I will start with 10 cents more with them than I earn now with the Coven. And they do offer all the extra pay incentives that Covenant did away with.

 

It sure does....if you work for Covenant.

I don't know if Washita Freight Systems is the best option out there. They have been busted for falsified logs on two occasions in the past couple fo years, but you could check them out and gauge their attitude in that arena. We have one complaint on this site about them, and that guy laid out a pretty bad experience.

However, I did a quickie search on them, because my time is very limited this morning, and don't see anything else out there that appears bad.

Interview them to see if you get a good vibe. Go with your gut instinct. Whatever it is, it's got to be better than what you are putting up with over at Covenant at the moment.

 

well it hit hte news and newspaper in chattanooga tn about covenant...a judge ordered them to stop making employees sign waiver form about workers comp..ifd u have been victimize u need to check this out it was in the newsfreepress in chattanooga on 04/11/07 there is a hearing set for april24 come on people enough is enough

 

I have a very low opinion of Convenant. A friend and I signed on straight out of truck driving school and neither of us could stand the trainers we had for even a week. My female trainer hopped in the sleeper with various males at every opportunity and pigs had better manners. Wasnt interested in teaching me anything, only used me to run the truck as a team.

My friends male trainer was worse- His trainer had drilled a hole in the floor of the truck and ran a tube and funnel so he didnt have to stop driving to pee and his truck LOOKED and smelled like a pig sty.
When we complained to Covenant, they acted like we were the ones who werent normal. No one really cared.

On a positive note, we didnt have any trouble finding another company that treated us well and valued us as drivers.

 

That has got to be the absolute worst thing I think a company can do is to hang their drivers out to dry like that. I am with you guy on this. Dump them like the GARBAGE they are. I was talking to some folks in a truck stop once that drove for Covenant. They were telling me an odd tale about how Coventant and Jimmy Swaggerd were in cahoots in some fashion and that Covenant was helping by supplying the limo for Jimmy and his prostitutes to hook up. That is only heresay but the folks were dead serious about it. We had a big laugh about it but when I hear horror stories like that I certainly wouldn't give them the time of day. And to think that at one time I had seriously considered going to work for them. I guess I'll be putting them on the Permanent Crap List. Thanx for the info. Sorry for your situation though. What a terrible thing to put drivers through! Absolutely Unacceptable.

 

i was watching dateline a few months ago, (mitabeen 48 hrs) and they were doing an internet sex predator sting. I had been driving for covenant for 2 years and was shocked (but not really surprised) to see a covenant truck driver caught on tape soliciting underage girls in georgia. The segment was on truckdrivers and the familiar white frtliner with red n blue stripes was in the camera background, you could make out the covenant logo. i am sooooo glad i no longer work there!

 

I worked for Covanant for 18 months.started with them after driving school.I try not to jump jobs to much thats why i stayed so long.talk about being screwed.I was doing walmart dedicated for them in upstate N.Y. and i recieved ez-pass.Well they gave me the wrong one,it was brought to my attention from my fleetmanager,so it took them 2 weeks to get me the right one.well in another week the manager of ez-pass dep. sent me a message tht I was speeding through a ez-pass terminal.
when i talked to him he charged me 50.00 i told him i had the wrong one,the fool continued to argue with me
and admitted i had the wrong one at the time,so battled with him for 2 more weeks.And still didnt get my money back.Thats just 1 way Covenant screwed me .More miles more screwing should be there motto.

 

More miles more screwing, more like just plain more screwing. Although in retrospect, I was running a good number of miles per week, however only one paycheck a month would reflect any amount of decent miles.

Thank the Lord they are in my rearview...

 

I started driving in the mid 80's for Command trucking in Atl, went to Bluegrass/Interstate Express when they sold out to Navaho. Then Cherokee (chicken haulers)-low miles poor trucks, went to Southwest Motor freight working for Clyde Fuller, drove 2 yrs and took a short break, then worked in the office for almost a year, Clyde sold out to Max-The first thing they said--"Nothing will change" two weeks later folks started getting 'Pink Slips' within 2 months it was almost all new faces. Left there, went into business for myself (not trucking) after 6 months of poor business I went to Covenant when it was on 23rd ST. My wife had her CDL, ran teams 9 months, got called back to my Real Job at the Railroad. Had no problems with Covenant-good miles-pay always on time-it used to be a good company. I guess the bigger they get the worse they become, Greed starts creeping in. Now being retired I am in search of a decent company, don't need a lot of miles (will take them for $$) also able to drive contact work, my Wife has an LLC for 1099's. I did call Covenant, and they said I would have to "Go to school" Been a few years since I drove OTR, but still have a CDL-A with doubles/triples/tanks endorsements.
I guess it will be hard for an old man to get back in--LOL Thanks everyone for the posts.

 

If anyone has worked for covenant and you want to know what they your dac,go to their site.They have a link for usis/covenant i just signed up for it i have to
fax my license and soc. card still.but they take 1 to 2 bussiness days to set you up.just came across it today.
just some friendly info