Husband and Wife Team looking at Covenant

No, I don't drive for Covenant. Running teams with your wife, you need a company that has APU's so during your down time or breaks, you can enjoy your computer, flat screen, microwave, air conditioning, heater, etc. without running down the trucks batteries. Most places these days you are not allowed to idle. System Transport has APU's and pays teams .50 cpm split. Melton Truck Lines runs teams & has APU's. Several others do also. My last ship was USS New Jersey (BB-62), so it's been awhile.

Melton has a terminal in Dallas.

System has a terminal in Laredo & several other cities. They run 48 states, Canada, Alaska.

 

Any of the "starter" companies will be a good start. They will take you in and get you trained and out on the road. Some of the better ones to get your feet wet with that will cater to a husband wife team that's just starting out are Covenant, CRST, and Werner. The first 2 are probably the most likely for a successful transition for the husband/wife training. CRST offers day 1 medical insurance and Covenant kicks in benefits after 30 days with cigna and its fairly cheap. I cant tell you finite details of each of them it would be best to contact a recruiter with both companies and see what works best, but once you get going you would have nice equipment and cross country drop and hook runs for the most part. once you get the hang of it and get a good flow between you and the wife, you could expect to net around $2000 a week combined on up and get some nice treatment.

 

Phil D, welcome to the forum. My wife and I have driven for Covenant for 4 years. It is a good company overall. Some mistakes are made but the in house staff does a great job of running us. We've learned all of the ins and outs of how the company and industry works and that's why we call it home here. Running teams is not for everyone. We run 6-7 weeks out then go home for a week. My wife and I are business partners as well as spouses. This is not what we call RVing like some drivers tend to think. Most of our freight is 1100-1200 miles per day, drop and hook almost all the time, good months 20-22k miles, bad months 16-18k miles. Overall, we will run about 225,000 per year and will gross about $110,000 for the year. That's on per diem, we may switch next year for social security purposes, but for now it's a big tax break. We have run reefer team, general OTR and now we run an engineered route for 2-3 major customers at Covenant. As a matter of fact, we were just named carrier of the year for the customer we handle most. Hope that means we get a bonus!
The hutchins terminal is nice, Michelle down there is awesome. Scott the terminal manager treats drivers like you would want to be treated. Great people all around.
At the end of the day, there's a company for everybody. If you live by Christian principles, Covenant is a good place. You don't have to be Christian but we are led in prayer at almost all in house functions we've been to. We like that too.
Phil do what u think is best for you and your wife. Hazmat teams do very well at Covenant. Tough life for a decent wage. We also train teams at the same time so you and your wife can stay together for the 6 weeks or so you r with a trainer. That was nice for us.
Good luck to you sir!

 

I had the same payroll issue being "3rd seat" during training. Call payroll directly, not your FM -- they will fix it (and give you an "advance" if you need it). I also had a segment difference between me and the other trainee -- dubiously remedied by logging on duty for the qualifying timeframe while layed over at a truck stop.

And I too once had someone call and ask why I stopped despite having ample time to make my delivery. It wasn't even my fleet manager, nor was I on a high value load... So I described in ample detail the inner workings of my bowels and I never again received another check up call.

 

My wife and I met a couple who works at Covenant at a truck stop in Seattle. Keep in touch with them thru Facebook. They've had a bad time at Covenant. Went thru a couple of trainers due to them hitting on the wife. They weren't getting the miles after training. My wife said their looking into local jobs now that they have six months experience.

 

I did call payroll every single time, and there were no advances. When I called payroll this week when my husband nor I got paid our phase 2 student pay salary payroll they asked me why my fm didn't offer me an advance, payroll can't advance money. And there are only a few people that work in those offices that know much, most of the other workers are workers comp helpers so sometimes you just don't get very far.

 

Covenant Reports like this are on the rise. I have had at least 6 calls from drivers in the past week in my women truckers group about deteriorating standards and poor leadership.

 

I am told by current drivers just in the past week that trainees are not getting paid and quitting, drivers are being intimidated who post on social networking sites and the quality of overall treatment to the drivers has declined. I worked there from 2007 to 2011 and to hear it has gotten worse than it was then when I wrote my student trucker horror story that appeared on the Dan Rather Investigative report series is a darn shame. I would warn anyone who is seeking information about carriers to realize that this carrier hides behind the bible to do some very ungodly things to very nice people who come to work in their employ. You can be there 12 years and be thrown under the bus. There is no loyalty for even driver who have gone above and beyond the call of duty for this very low paid carrier. As team drivers you can really do much better for treatment and pay. I suggest you keep researching carriers that value drivers rather than treat them like expendable cattle.