TransAm Trucking, Inc. - Olathe, Ks.?

Transam Pete, would love to hear your take on lease vs. company.

 

Well, I think the teacher meant was that lease gives you more freedom and your not as much a slave then the company driver also you get better loads.

 

I have appreciated every bit of help,information, and encouragement that my husband and I have received from all of the others on this forum....if I can help someone else navigate the world of OTR trucking I am grateful for the opportunity to pay back the help that was so freely given to us.

Panhandle Flash is correct about Sirius charging you a fee when you change your radio service from one truck to another,( I had forgotten about that!). However, Husband told them that he was married to a very mean little woman that would not pay such a high fee so he would probably just have to discontinue his service ......and they decided to give him a credit for most of it. I think it has cost us $15 to switch it each time he has got a new truck... and actually I think they credited the whole fee one time.

My husband is a company driver and as a company driver you can not turn down loads .....but I think most of the lease drivers would tell you that they very rarely turn down loads anyway. You want to stay on the good side of dispatch as much as you can ....turning down loads is not the way to do that. As far as getting more miles .....I don't know but from what the others have said I think the miles are about the same after you have been there awhile. A lot of it is just the luck of the draw ....are you in the right place at the right time to move that particular load.

 

Hey Panhandle flash, I think I figured out why we were flagged for review on our posts. I might be wrong but I believe it was only the posts that mentioned a certain satellite radio service. Hmmmmm....... are we doing a little advertising research for these service providers? Sneaky ...

 

Hmmm...I brought the radio service thing up by name first, and I didn't get the review business. I dunno. Anyway....

The latest is I get to fly outta Rockwall tomorrow morning to go recover a truck in Columbia SC. They said it'll most likely wind up being my truck after I get it back to a terminal and they've had a chance to check it over. Three other guys from my class are doing the same thing. I got lucky, two of the others have to ride the grey dog again to get to their recoveries. One of them I know is a recovery my trainer turned down last week while I was in the middle of training with him in FL. So one more day of that get-rich-quick training pay for me!

 

HomeTime, I'm not married, but I'll have to use a version of that ploy when I change trucks too! Thanks for the tip that the change fee can be "adjusted"!

I really do believe that doing your best to "help" your DM out by doing what they ask is the path to success, whether company or lease. A lease operator who turns down loads on a regular basis isn't gonna get the choice loads after a while, regardless of what the lease pushers in orientation say. At least< I sure hope that's the case.

Just met my DM, and found out those guys don't have a fleet of 45 trucks to run, they have an average of 65!! No wonder they don't have time to sit on the phone with drivers and chew the fat. Mine made it clear he would very much appreciate a form 99 message instead of a phone call.

 

Well, shoot! I thought I was so smart and had figured it out .....the only posts that I had flagged for review were those that had the name of that service provider ....same thing with Panhandle's post. I did wonder if yours had been also, bwaync.

 

Well made it to Rockwall ready to start orientation tomorrow . Hey bwaync what did ya do about that resignation letter they wanted you to sign ??? Did they make you sign it or we're they just blowing smoke ??? I am wanting to start company as well as I have no OTR exp. kind of worried about the hard time with that choice , but I don't plan to do a lease regardless !!

 

Hey Hometime Queen you were right on the money about the K-Pac cold storage warehouse in Wilmington,CA. I was in and out of there in about 2 hrs. This time through there was A OK.

 

Glad to hear it, kirk! It had been quite awhile since Husband had been there. I think all of you know by now that I keep a notebook. I keep a record of all Husband's trips, the miles empty and loaded, if the times to load or unload were excessive, if they were rude, or if they were driver friendly, if they had overnight parking if applicable, if it was a tight place to get into the dock, where the trailer washes are .....anything that might be helpful to know later on. You guys might be younger than us and have a better memory, but for husband and I he has been so many places that after a bit it becomes a blur. If I can go back and check my notes and say this is the place that you have to back down the long alley with cars on both sides then he normally remembers it and knows how to approach it ....,if that makes any sense. Also, if dispatch calls him and tells him something but there is no qualcomm record of it, atleast I have it written down with a date...and who it was that called. It has meant the difference between getting paid for some "favor" or not getting paid at all.