The BEST company YOU have worked for!

This depends whom one works for.... My LTL company pays us for the actual miles driven as everyone should, based upon what a driver mileage survey comes up with. They send 3-4 drivers to the same point then average what the mileage is and then pay us that average..... Most runs are paid a little more than my odometer shows, a couple miles each way, some are a mile or two under whatmy odometer shows. Yes, we are routed by the company, but I'm not complaining, they keep us on the interstates even when they could save mileage by running us on the two lanes. We get paid for detour routes as well, as everyone should. All we have to do is call in for a code, give them what road we were on, the reason for the detour which they usually know about anyway and we get paid. Life is good

 

Maybe you should look into buying your own truck and starting your own company.

 

Swift... haha..

 

Rsinger Hands Down

 

1) Overnite/UPS freight

2) NEMF

3) Auto-truck transp.


Notice that 2 out of the three are union and 2 out of the 3 are LTL.

Moral of the story? Look for unionized LTL jobs first!

 

Best jobs will offer the best pay and benefits;

decent mileage rate = .40 cpm and higher
stop pay (every stop not this bs stuff where you pick up for free and deliver for free).
Drop/hook pay.
detention pay.
breakdown pay.
congestion pay for cities such as Boston, Chicago, and NYC.
holiday pay.
personal/sick day pay.
paid vacation.
pension or 401k
reasonably priced health insurance.
Disability insurance (optional AFLAC available)
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
assigned trucks
70+ mph trucks
apu's
direct deposit




Home every weekend and assigned equipment are a plus. Steady work and consistent pay is extremely important.

The only companies that even come close to the above criteria are LTL outfits, Union outfits, and private fleets such as Walmart, Frito Lay, Sherwin Williams, New Century, etc.

The best jobs are usually not advertised and have very low turnover. Word of mouth and/or knowing someone inside the company are the only ways to get these truly decent paying jobs.

 

Best company I ever worked for was Sunflower Carriers before they merged it into Shaffer in Jan 2003. Once they did that it sucked.

 

Not all the better LTL jobs are union. Pitt Ohio is not union. I made 81k last year being home everyday. Granted, I do have enough senority to run 2900+ miles per week, EVERY WEEK, and I run # 50-55 hours per week, but even our bottom guys average over 50k and they are only working @45 hours per week.

Great things about my job as a linehaul LTL driver.

Top rate of 53 cpm- 3 years to get to top rate

NO weekends

HOME EVERYDAY-NO layovers unless something has gone wrong with a relay- weather, breakdowns, etc... I've been here 10 years and have only been laid out twice- once was planned as orientation and once was becuase of a breakdown. We do orientation at home terminals now.

Paid for ALL miles driven- even detour miles.

Paid for all on road delays, traffic jams- set the brakes and start getting paid. Breakdowns- set the brakes and start getting paid. Late relay partners- wait 30 minutes for free (lunch) then start getting paid.
If we are delayed at a terminal we have the option to "work" the dock and get paid.

All drop and hook.

E-logs- I know some do not think these are a good thing, but our runs are set up to NOT run aganst our 11 or 14 hour clock so it really is pretty handy having the computer do your logs for you.

Company paid health insurance for the driver and his family. Our dental and vision kind of sucks, but the medical is outstanding. I paid $50 out of pocket for a vasectomy.

Newer equipment- most is 3 years old or newer. The company just ordered another 150 tractors for this year.

We only fuel at our terminals- no messing around waiting in line at truck stops for a fuel island and then standing in line at fuel counters with a bunch of smelly guys whom can't remember what soap and water are for

They ability to transfer to different states where we have terminals as long as there is an opening for you to fill.

Bad things about my job

65 mph trucks. Some go a "little" faster, some go a "little" slower.

All of our brand new trucks, mine included have the ITERIS lane deviation system installed. What's that one may ask? It's a camera up on the windshield that senses where you are in your lane and then makes a rumble strip sound if you edge out of your lane, even just a little, like on the PA pike when someone is passing you. It can be turned off for 15 minutes at a time but it still is a pain because it does give off false alarms fairly regularly.

No freedom to run how you want. We have set routes and set run times. Once you leave the clock is ticking, you cannot mess around getting to where you are supposed to be. This is really not a problem for me as I prefer to get where I'm going and get the heck back so I can get home. But some do like to trash around truck stops and that doesn't work here.

If the company is open, we run, NO matter what the weather is. You will drive in snow storms and even blizzards here. Last winter we only had two shut downs and even then those were localized to the terminals directly affected by the worst of the weather. My terminal was shut down once here in northern Ohio and the east coast terminals shut down once.

 

Right, i meant either try LTL OR unionized first. If you can get on with an LTL line that is also unionized then great----that's a good jackpot.


Or try unionized truckload/or specialty carrier. Atkinson comes to mind if you do mind northeast.