My Experience with Trans Am

Ok, I started with Trans Am in June 2011 as a lease operator. Overall, the company is not that bad. They have some good equipment and a decent support staff, all their trucks have APUs, and they're all automatics.

The things that I liked about Trans Am is they mainly run about 35 states, going from the Midwest slaughter houses to the east, then back haul dry freight back to the midwest, rinse, repeat. I like running east / west better than doing the South to North and vice versa.

Trans Am pays for ALL - ALL tolls, even the Flordia Sun Pass, with on board transponders. They have the Florida Sun Pass, the Kansas Pike Pass, and EZ Pass, so tolls are never a problem.

As a lease operator, I wasn't forced dispatched, so I could turn down loads that I didn't want to run. I suspected that I would be placed on "the list" for turning down loads, but that didn't happen, so that's another plus.

Ok, the downside - industry low pay for lease operators. .84 cmp plus fuel surcharge. The upside is they pay practical miles and give you the FSC on all miles, loaded and empty. The downside again - high per week lease payments. On their new 2012 KW T700s, the lease payments were $580 per week plus .05 cent per mile. Lease payments were typically around $700 to $800 per week after you factor in the .05 cpm.

The high lease payments means you cannot take much hometime, no more than 2 days off, and you cannot take weelky home time. TA recommends that your run 3 weeks then take 2 days off. Regardless, any time over two days off and you start running into red ink, again because of the high lease payments. This may not be a problem to a "road warrior" trucker, someone whom hometime is not an issue, but in my instance it is.

Trans Am still runs paper logs, although they are going to e logs in the future, or so at least, that was the official rumor when I left.

Now, for a major downside - Trans Am is ULTRA ANAL about their CSA score. There is a long list of violations that can get you terminated or shut down for a week. Some examples are:

Waring ticket for illegal parking - Shut down 1 week.
Speeding 6 MPH over the limit - Terminated
Warning ticket Following Too Close - Shut down 1 week.
Speeding in Construction Zone - Terminated.

Notice that some of these are for warning tickets - not formal citations. The few examples I listed is not all of the infractions which can get you shut down or terminated. They are merely a few of a long list. I never got shut down or terminated, but having that sword of Damacles hanging over you all the time is worrisome, because we all have gone down hill a little faster than the posted speed limit to gain momentum to get up the next hill. I did get 1 warning ticket for illegal parking, but I got the ticket before Trans Am implemented their shut down / terminate list of violations. Had the policy been in effect, I would have been shut down by Trans Am for 1 week - 7 days - at which point I would have told them to keep the truck because I would have been in the red ink so far it would have taken me 3 weeks just to break even again. I do understand that Trans Am is trying to improve their CSA score, but you can also attract more flys with sugar than with vinegar. In my opinion, they should give drivers who have zero tickets or other violations which affect the company CSA an additional bonus instead of hammering a driver over the head for getting minor infractions.

Ultimately I give Trans Am a B- to a C+. I would have given them a B+ if not for their being so extreme about their CSA score that they punish the driver costing them thousands of dollars for minor infractions whether ticketed or not.

Hope this information helps for any driver considering working for Trans Am.

 

For the most part, the drivers at Trans Am are happy, whether it be company drivers or lease ops. Of course, you are going to have a few that not a "good fit" for the company, but that's true with any company. Company drivers that I talked to liked working for TA. I mainly knew more lease op drivers than co. drivers. I made some good friends at T.A. and I would still be there if I just could have gotten home a little more often without going in the hole. It was hard to leave, but I live outside of the major trucking lanes so I never got a load that I could "stop by the house" with, but some drivers do get to "go through the house" on the way to deliver a load.

Trans Am is not a "bad" company, they have their faults just like anybody else.

I'm going over to Celadon and lease with them. Their lease is not based on a monthly payment so I can go home without having to worry about catching up on a lease payment when I go back out.

Anyway, you'll have a good time at Trans Am as long as you don't get any tickets and you keep a positive attitude.

 

Not sure about the refresher course, I didn't have to do that when they hired me.

Trans Am's official home time is 8 days out with 1 day off for every 8 days out.