Back from TMC orientation in south carolina

Thanks for the info Waterloo.... makes perfect sense to me

 

Alright, When I was taking my driving test at Roadmaster. I saw this swift driver do a U-turn right into my lane. U-turns are illegal. Thats just one example. Also saw one run a red light and almost hit a car. Werner is paperless because of too many log violations. DOT forced them to go paperless, or go out of business. My Roommate in Des Moines was with Werner for one week. Two days of orientation, then out with his trainer. He drove to Chicago with his trainer. When he arrived his trainer chuckled and said they were overweight. Then his trainer said we are driving to vegas as a team. You drive while i'll sleep. Sounds like some good training to me. He then quit, got a bus back home and joined a reputible company. If you want to defend Werner and Swift, tell me why you think they are good? or is it just because they would hire someone like you, which makes me happy that I work for a company that wouldn't. Also, on my way home from Iowa, I saw four swift trucks in the ditch, nice driving swift!

 

The gas plant I worked in for 16 years required anyone entering it to watch a 30 minute safety video and then take a short test. Everyone was required to wear long sleeve fire retardant shirts with then tucked in and, steal toed safety boots, a hard hat, and safety glasses. There were no exceptions to these rules and even if you were just gonna be in the plant for a couple of minutes. They weren't that strict on beards, thank goodness because I have had a short one for about the last 25 years, but there were certain areas you could not have one in like the cooling tower where they used Clorine. Now we did have some other plants that had H2S pretty regular and you had to be clean shaven in those, I never visited them.

I agree with you Waterloo. One thing I have never understood is why would anyone let themself look sloopy. I mean people get their first impression of you by how you look. You can't judge a person by their looks but it still happens. I would rather leave a good impression anyday over a bad one.

 

And that is why the American workforce is turning into a joke. Whats next "can't work there the boss yelled at me" Actually I'm glad you have that attitude!!! More jobs for me.

 

They may have had a ton of violations but that is not why they have the paperless logs.

 

i am defending werner and swift not because they would hire "someone like me" if that was the case i would also defend tmc as well.
the recruting dept. at tmc sends me solicitations of driving jobs every year.
i do not have much first hand information on werner.
i have never worked for them so i would not shoot off at the mouth about something i know little about. (you would be wise to do the same)

a few years back i did a stint with swift and my expierence was good and profitable. the equipment was always in compliance. and the miles were good. plenty of coast to coast trips .
the safty dept. was very proactive in making sure my logs were in compliance.
so you witnessed a swift driver making a u turn, and a couple of others in the ditch. WOW, ALERT THE PRESS!
and a werner driver in training had to negoctiate i 80 while his trainer was sleeping in the bunk two feet away instead of holding his hand.
the fact that a companey such as swift has a large number of bad drivers should have little bearing on the perspective driver making a choice for employment.
if billy jo puts his truck in the ditch at swift every day. iam still going to make my money.
you should try and focus more on the performence of the companey and not the driving skills or lack of skills of the drivers when choosing a place to work.
but if you would like to know the FACTS of driver performence .the fmcsa has swift and tmc at a satisfactory level.
swift vehicals put out of service 16.9 % tmc vehicals out of service 17% . swift drivers out of service 3.6% vs tmc drivers out of service 4.5%
based on those numbers a tmc driver going through the scales has a better chance of a log book inspection then a swift driver.
next time you go through the coup and you are up for a level one.just tell the dot officer about those swift trucks making u turns in the ditch in iowa and maybe you can get a free pass.

merry christmas

 

Quick question. I have about 3months of experience and about 20years of exprience off paperbiggrin_25525. Anywhoms, I've been driving for 3months now, and I can't back for crap. My question for whomever, is when you go to the training will they be a big stickler on backing or will they let your trainer focus more on that?

I can drive my rear-end off, and can strap and tarp any load anywhere, I just cant back. Will they help you out with that?

 

You can say what you want, Swift and Werner are both sketchy companies. To compare Swift and Werner with TMC is foolish. First of all Swift and Werner drive old, run down trucks and pull vans. TMC drives New Shiney trucks and pull Flatbed. You can try to throw stats in my face, but when I get pulled in by a DOT officer, I am not worried, because I have a new truck. Can't say that about Swift or Werner. Proof is in the pudding, or shiney new Chrome. Don't let it blind ya

 

They will eject you from Orientation if you can't back. They will show you, because backing flatbed is different from dry van. You use 45degree instead of alley dock. You have 48' split axle with dump valve instead of 53' dry van. If you are hitting cones on the last day of backing you run the possibility of getting let go.

 

I feel the same way. If I wanted to compete with every tom, dick and harry, I would drive for Werner or Swift. I drive for TMC, because it's difficult and requires more out of you, therefore less compitition.