Newbie Nedds Info On Maverick

Cant tell you much about Maverick but can give you some advice on some of the other things.
The electric coolers are great, they plug into a power port and will keep things nice and cool. Just keep it between your seats so you can get what you want easy. Power invertors are bought by the driver and most if not all companies what thier mechanics at the terminals to install them. If you run a cooler, a tv with a built in dvd player and a little oven then a 1500 watt will be plenty which you can get for around 80 bucks. The stove is a handy thing and it plugs into a power port and heats to 350 degrees so you can cook about anything you want. It is small (about 12 inches x 5 inches x 7 inches so it dont take up anyroom) they run around 24 bucks at any truck stop. But dont buy the aluminum pans at a truck stop (about 4 dollars for 3 of them) you can get 3 of em at walmart for a $1.25. Living in Michigan you probably wont get west of 35 so you'll see alot of the eastern and north eastern states. Pretty much you'll get to know 95, 84, 81, 80, 77 real good and that means your going to get to know the Pocono mountains and the Appalachan mountains real good. And when you cross the George Washington bridge to go into NYC have a city map with your route planned out and check it with a truckers atlas which will give you all the low bridges for every state to make sure you dont end up going down a street that you should'nt have. But just know it aint all open roads. Sometimes it's 294 outside of Chicago or 95 outside NYC or even worse yet 95 outside of DC

 

I drive for US Xpress, It's a job and thats about it. Any big carrier is going to have more bad things going for it then good as far as how you are treated ( a truck and log number as opposed to a human with a name) The problem with USX is they haul a lot of frieght from rail yards which is in itself a disorganized cluster f&*#. The nice thing about flatbeds is your not wasting all your hours of service waiting in line for your turn to dock. The bad thing about flatbeds is tarping (remember to let go of the tarp if the wind takes it!) As far as some of the real bad companies, just from talking to other drivers for different ones I would say avoid Swift, JB Hunt, Werner and USA.
Who ever you do go with make sure that their training isnt really team driving. It does you no good if your out there to learn and your trainer is sleeping in the berth while your driving and vice versa. Thats the one good thing I can say about USX is that the trainee does all the driving and the trainer rides in the jump seat for 3 weeks then the 4th week you team drive for a week then you get your own truck. And make sure your trainer lets YOU do all the backing, otherwise when you get your truck you'll be screwed. And when you get off the hi-way to go to your drop or pick up, remember how to get back to the hi-way. If you ask someone how to, talk to the person in the shipping office. Dont ask a dock worker or worse yet a secetary cuz they wont take into consideration that they drive a car and your in a semi and they'll send you down a road that will take you into a residential nieghborhood or some mess like that. And if your not sure about something, find a safe place to pull over to get it figured out. You dont ever want to keep driving deeper into a city if your not sure.

 

I wasnt implying that Maverick wasnt good. And when I said a big company I was talking about USX (8000 trucks) and Werner, Swift and so on. And I have never had any trouble getting home time on the day that I put in for but thats my dispatch. For being basically a number, talk to a USX driver and ask them if they get fast and good response when the call break down or payroll or any other dept. Because I never have nor has any of the drivers Ive talked to about it. And dont even think of going out of their pre planned route. It'll cost you $1.00 per mile. I brought a load from Neenah WI going to Mansfield OH. If you route it out you'll make your way to 80 90 e. coming off 294 outside Chicagur company trucks are governed at 65 so I would like to run that all the way to exit 118 OH take 250 to 13 and Im there. But no, thats 32 miles farther than the shortest possible I can take. So I had to run 80 90 e to 65 IN down to 30 and take 30 all the way to mansfield. They saved 32 miles of fuel but it took me about 2, 2 1/2 hours longer. I'm doing 55 and going thru 2 dozen po dunk towns and every traffic signal in said towns instead of just setting the cruise and constantly rolling. Where that messed me up was when I got there I had 10 minutes of HOS left. So I lost the load going from there to Cleveland. It's crap like that is why I said the big companies dont really care about you. And from talking to drivers werner and swift and hunt its the same story with them.

 

You picked 3 pretty good companies to start with. Just a warning though...from what I've heard, they don't suffer fools gladly. Do what you're supposed to do and be professional. I think they have their own kids to raise. All 3 will pay you for your effort.

 

I figured you wasn't I was just saying there are big companies that are decent co's to work for.

 

What more do you need to know? Tell them you will NOT run specialized until they get their act together. The other part of the company gets great reviews. I think they fell into a mess with this Schneider deal and don't know what to do about it.