U.S. XPRESS..... Please look elsewhere for a job..

People like this are the reason everyone is eventually going to be on elogs LOL

 

Pay by the mile and the 11/14 clock is why you have E-logs. As long as drivers are payed for how many miles they can drive and not for how many hours they work, people are left with a choice of either making money and paying their bills or wasting a lot of time sitting around waiting for some computer to tell them they can work. Drivers with experience and good work and safety records are forced to work part time like a student driver.

The media portrays OTR drivers as having to many hours to work and thinks we drive 11hrs everyday when in fact the average driving per day is around 8hrs.

We where told that with the 11/14 change that companies and shprs would have to be more efficient. Well I did not see that happen and was constantly hitting the 14 hr mark due to delays in shping or recving and dispatching. Because they took out the flexibility to take breaks during down time by counting it against your drive time.

Under the old system if you started at 0800 to make a del and it took 2hrs and then dh 100miles and pu a load at 1800 you would have 10hrs to drive at 1930 .

Now that same load would leave you with a max of 2.5hrs to drive and then take at least a 8hr break when you just had 8hrs in break time between 0800 and 1930 but none of it counted.

This made OTR a waste of time in my book unless you could drive for a outfit that had good shprs and receivers and could keep the dwell times to a minimum.

I talked to a driver the other day who spent 10hrs getting unldd at the grocery whse he went to and was charged $500+ to hire a lumper who had to break his load down from 48plts to over 170plts. So he ended up spending 34 hrs on a ld that only paid him 14hrs of drive time. The company he works for will only pay local and detention if the driver logs it on line 4 because they know the drivers will want to save their drive time for higher paying mileage runs. Meanwhile they pocket most of the detention money anyway because they are probably getting 35 a hr after 2 on that load and paying out 10 a hr if the driver chooses to log it on line 4.

 

Yep. Something else that so many of these lazy truck school grads overlook (not that all of you are lazy, you know who you are), When you've been doing this as long as I have, driving 8, 10 or 11 hours a day doesn't wear you out. Your sleep patterns adjust, a three or four hour nap is usually sufficient to get me another 8 or 10 hours down the road. it's not like this job is a great physical strain, if you do it right it is however a tremendous mental strain. If I'm truly tired I can hop in the bunk and go right to sleep, but five to six hours is about all that I ever sleep unless I've really been running hard.

I'm a professional driver, not someone who failed at everything else they ever tried and stepped into driving as a last resort, nor am I a lifelong accountant or retailer or whatever who thought trucking might be a nice break from the 9 to 5, a paid vacation as it were. This is my chosen profession and I do it well. I deliver the freight that others can't, or won't. I have never used any substance stronger than caffeine behind the wheel, and that is a rarity, and never wrecked a truck in well over a million miles of opportunity. E-logs exist for a lot of reasons, but I'm not one of them.

I'm older now, and a bit wiser. I don't do all the crazy things I used to do in 96', I don't have the same stamina I once had either, but if it absolutely has to be there overnight, forget Federal Express, I'm your guy.

If I just pulled an 11 hour shift behind the wheel I am probably not that tired, if I choose to hit the bunk I may or may not sleep, tossing and turning is not restful. If I am tired enough to sleep I will usually wake up in five hours or so, which means I've got another four or five hours to bide my time waiting on my logbook, this is more tiresome than driving. Basically, what I'm saying is that I'm a grown man, I don't need someone to tell me when I should or shouldn't sleep. Some mornings I might crawl out of the bunk and not feel like I could make it from Dallas to Fort Worth, and no dispatcher is going to tell me that I have to. Other days I might find a groove that gets me from Dallas to Phoenix with only a quick stop or two along the way.

If a man falls asleep behind the wheel and kills a car load of kids coming back from a swim meet, he should pay the price. We have laws on the books for such things. It's my firmly held belief that over regulation of the trucking industry has actually made the highways less safe. There was a time when I only had to worry about the four wheelers, most truck drivers could be counted on to be safe, even if not always courteous. As a former driving instructor I know how license mills work. I told my students on day one, I can't make you a truck driver, only experience will do that, and for some of you that won't even be enough. What I can do is help you to become a safe and knowledgeable driver who won't be a danger to others, and will live long enough to become a true professional.

BigBlu19, your comments were much appreciated, but likely won't resonate with too many of the current class of driver we share the road with these days. Hopefully I can make it another four or five years and retire before one of these "professional drivers" ends my life prematurely or just prices me right out of the industry. Be safe out there.

 

that all company no matter were you go same bull #### swift werner schneider jb hunt they all the same the only company i hear it good is tmc other then that all the same

 

u worked for total,not usx

 

Just to let you know i am a rookie,or whatever you call us.They told me i was goin to deticated account,i was taking my upgrade test,and they told me deticated wasnt hiring anymore.They asked me to go over the road team,and i told them no way,and i walked out on the spot!So yes they lie to rookies also,and i couldnt go deticated even though i trained on account for close to 4 weeks!This was a shock to me that the told me this when i was taking my upgrade test,pure shady,and liars.

 

Not necessarily . There was openings when you trained but other people got the spots before you and they were full. Sorry, it happens .

 

you just described the majority of the large companies out there however you in a comment on your last sentence, the company is in the business of moving freight not getting you home. If they don't move it then no-one has a job. Try to remember that a company will try to get you home on time but sometimes it dosn't happen as the freight may not be moving in that direction, the load might have fell through etc...

 

Wrong. If a company makes a verbal contract to place a person in a certain position when hiring them on they should do so. The bait and switch is alive and well in larger companies. I have seen it in action myself. If a person is promised a dedicated slot and the company waits until the last day of orientation to say "sorry but you can go otr" you have been had.

 

Dunno wtf y'all are talking about... Seriously.

First off, any amount of research would tell a possible solo driver, that us Xpress caters to teams (hence the required teaming upon upgrade, for recent grads). #### I knew that when I was in school for my cdl back in November of 2011.

I went in with a team partner, got a bonus of 2500 a piece. Was hired in January, and didn't get with partner until march due to me training with a trainer who was on the family dollar account. When we finally got together we received apx 4500 miles a week for about 3 months. (probation period). My partner had to sit out a month due to surgery, so I went solo for a month. Almost starved lol, but once my partner got back our avg mikes per week jumped to apx,5000. My mother became ill so I had to take a 2 month Loa, but once I was ready to come back, I was welcomed with open arms plus a 1000 rehire bonus. Had to solo for a month before my old partner and I got back on the same truck, due to scheduling conflicts.

So all in all, we ha e been a team for a little over 6 months, and love teaming. We got 5400 last week, and looks like (if we can get a short 1000 mild trip when we drop off this load on Tuesday morning) we are looking at a 6000 mile (that will be on one check).

Perhaps we got lucky with our dispatcher, but we have no intention of leaving when we are making good money. Sorry for those who got ######.