Marten Transport, LTD. - Mondovi, Wi.?

Anybody have any info on the marten 7/7 flex schedule? i live 1 hour from carlisle, pa. i believe they have a terminal there.

 

I had a friend who wasn't happy where he was, with a company I am familiar with (they qualify for being a subsidiary of BFI). So, I referred him to Marten, and passed along my experience with them (good and bad) before he called them. That was at the end of 2012, and he signed on with Marten just in time for the holiday "rush" of freight, which should have guaranteed him solid miles and enough income to survive the very dry winter months.

Within 3 months, he returned to his previous job, ready to file for bankruptcy. He apparently also never had one home time request honored during his 3 months with them, during which time his wife had health issues, his step-daughter died, as did his best friend of many years. After 3 months on the road and no money to show for it, he walked away.

This would be consistent with what I've been hearing this year (2013) from many other drivers at Marten.

Taking this into account, and their ongoing safety issues (which translates into lots of time being spent behind the scale house for Level I inspections), my advice is to avoid this company.

 

Marten is okay, but they will fire you quick, and the fact that the shop guys think they need to get inside your bunk and see if "it is clean" is just wrong and invasion of privacy if you ask me. I wouldn't let them in the first time they asked at the Mondovi shop. I said it was clean enough and asked what they think they are looking for? I was told pee jugs and garbage. I am a woman and insulted I said I don't keep pee jugs or garbage in my truck, maybe some dirty cloths and my bed wasn't made. So they just looked in the door and left me alone. I didn't get bothered at the other terminal's, so just avoided the Mondovi WI terminal at inspection time. Memphis TN guys were the best. I had a extention cord but I would put it away. they cannot say anything if they don't see it being used. I also had a porti potty which they said wasn't allowed, but I feel is a must have. I just made sure it was kept clean and put away. They didn't get in and dig around in your bunk they would get up in the truck look and get back out. If stuff was put away and it was clean and smelled decent in the truck that's all they cared, unless of course your an ### truck driver then it would be different. I saw a guy in KSCity get nit picked about everything, but he was a jerk, soo anyway.

 

I seen two lawsuits against marten for over weight issues, on trucker forum. seemed odd?

 

Yeah I saw those articles too. What's oddest is your quoting my ancient post. It does happen to contain the word "Marten," but then, don't lots of other ones too? Why mine? Further mystifying is the age of the quoted post...I quit Marten almost six years ago, so it's well over ten years old.

Never mind all that---I'll just assume you chose an indirect way to solicit my input on the lawsuits. When I was still there back in 2010 CAT (and other) scalings were becoming harder and harder to get reimbursed. It therefore didn't surprise me to hear about these lawsuits, but on the other hand one of them---I think it was the first one but it might have been the second---sounded pretty bogus to me since the driver was refusing to haul a load that scaled at 80,040. I definitely took Marten's side on that one.

 

I wouldn't. OVERWEIGHT is OVERWEIGHT,as far as DOT is concerned. It ain't worth getting the FINES and/or POINTS on your license for running an overweight truck thru a scale house-and Marten should know better than to try to pull a stunt like that with the new anti coercion laws that are in effect.

 

No points on license for being overweight.

 

^It used to be. At any rate it isn't worth the risk of DOT trying to find other stuff.

 

More details need to be included for us to have a meaningful discussion, but if you try to claim that a driver should be worrying about running into a portable DOT scale five miles from where he/she scales at 80,040, then we've got nothing to discuss. Burning six gallons---no more than sixty miles for a loaded rig---gets you below 80K. If the nearest DOT scale isn't within sixty miles of where you scaled, then you're just shooting both you and your employer in the foot if you raise a stupid fuss about such a ridiculously minuscule risk. In some states such as CA you have nothing to worry about crossing a DOT scale at 80,040. I'd be a little worried about 80,300 there, but not 80,040.

 

A possible exception that could be reasonable to worry about, might be scales installed in the roadway. I suppose those could be problematic in roughly the same way that automated traffic light enforcement is problematic...I DO worry a lot about getting a ticket if I accidentally go through a stale yellow light (I tend to slam on my brakes for yellow lights ever since they started installing those).