Van Buren

your wrong on that usit420,i live in Dallas area and get quite a few loads through the house in addition to my hometime every other weekend

 

Ok I am a new guy in this business i know i need to make at least 1200.00 a week to keep my family aflot here in north jersey any one have any ideas of what co will give you the miles and is it better to go percentage over miles, please be honest and not a bunch you know whats...

 

Yep same here. I live east of Dallas and get a load here and there that goes through the house on top of my home time. In fact picking up a load in Lebanon Indiana now heading to Fort Worth should get to sleep in my own bed tomorrow night.

 

What is it that I'm wrong about? I stated what my experience was, not yours. So, again, please enlighten me on what it is that I'm wrong about.

 

Sure, there were good weeks here and there....but I'm constantly looking at averages. ! good week to me doesn't make up for 2 bad weeks. I'm always looking at my averages for the week, month, last 6 weeks, etc. I do have to keep a running spreadsheet to do this, but I'm able to always know where I'm headed, financially. You know, I also keep up with the company financial reports and press releases. According to the last few press releases the average miles for USA drivers right now is something like 1900/week. So, abviously there will be some drivers doing a little better than that, some worse, and some right at that number. I'm not saying that no one there gets good miles or that everyone gets the shaft. I think many times you just get what's available in the area that you're in at the time. Bottom line for me, though...is that yes there were short periods where I got good miles, but over the long haul, I averaged about 1800-1900 week. To me, that was unacceptable, I didn't spend thousands of dollars on school and make countless sacrifices for this business so that I could make $600-$700 a week...and always be susceptible to major fines in the process. I know theres going to be someone that says "well, if you do your PTI, etc you have nothing to worry about." That's BS! PTI doesn't prevent acts of GOD during a trip. Lights typically go out when the truck is running, blowouts/flat tires happen with the truck running and you don't always hear or feel flat tires, try running across a scale with a flat (unknown to you at the time)...lemme know how that works out for ya.

I've probably pissed people off a few times...I don't run illegal, I don't go to a shipper with 30 minutes left...not reasonable, but this company will ask/demand that you do it. I will say that when I was given adequate time to get somewhere legally, then I got there. I did everything that was asked of me if I could legally do it, and I always treated their customers good, regardless of my feeling toward the situation. One of their biggest problems is the circular responsibility. For example, I had a tripak go out completely, so I was lucky enough to have a truck that would idle. I would mention to the FM that I needed to get in somewhere for repairs, he'd suggest that I call breakdown. I'd call breakdown, the'd say to get with my FM and get routed to a terminal. I'd relay that info back to the FM, he said he didn't understand why they were sending me back to him, to call B/D back again. So there I was going through a circular pattern of no one knowing anything. So, I got send back to the FM again, he says to keep rolling since the truck would idle. 6 weeks later he finally gets me to a terminal, they tell me I don't have an appt that I'll have to wait. Wait is what I did (for 28 hours), they pull the truck in, turn it down due to fuel economy (due to idling), I get a talking to about fuel economy, am told the truck is ready 6 hours later. The next day the APU quits again, only this time it doesn't idle anymore. At this point I've lost alot of money, they refuse to pay b/d pay because I was at a terminal for less than 3 days. The real kicker is that they had a truck there that they could have swapped me into and I could have kept rolling, they declined that request. The only people at that company that genuinely care about anything are the people that genuinely do not have the authority to change anything. That is my opinion.

If you're doing well at USA, I'm honestly glad that someone is. Too bad I'm not Cliff Beckham, I could have darn near bankrupted the company and got a raise for doing it. It's a crap-shoot.

 

lol my profile that is funny frog, I have had my cdl since 1998, usa made me go back and take a refresher (which I did not need). I left usa because it is a sinking ship. you keep on trucking frog and shooting your mouth off, stay safe. By the way the second company is in my home town, I run out west once a week then come home for 2 full days then back out, see if usa will promise that!!!!

 

Hey Chem when I left usa i was in a brand new cascadia, I loved it, if they would have treated me better I would still be there. The grass here now is a lot greener and hopefully stay that way. Let me say I am not a student, sure they made me go back to take a refresher but I drove for Schnieder back in the 90's, hell I was driving a cap-over then, not too many of them around anymore!! Stay safe !!

 

USIT420 here is your exact statement" You should know that USA will avoid ever sending you close to home, that would be too easy to leave the company" you did not say in my experiences.You just made a broad statement that makes it sound like no drivers ever get to go by the house ,that's why I replied with what I did.I hope you feel enlightened now