About to go very OTR with Swift

I worked for two local carriers. I'll tell you what I remember.

Heyl:

OTR Reefer out of Zephyrhills.

Made about 55k per year.

Home time was atrocious.

Heyl also used to send us to Tyson or other slaughterhouses many hours or even DAYS before we'd get a load all the time.

Frequently tasks drivers with repowering loads which turn out to be badly overweight putting drivers in no win scenarios.

Average length of haul was probably 1,400 miles. I had several Florida > Oregon loads and one Florida > Washington load.

The second carrier was ReedTMS:

OTR Dry Van out of Tampa.

They installed driver facing cams in every truck. This is why I quit. I would probably still be there if they hadn't done that.

Pay was fantastic. I made around $78k per year.

Tractors were comically awful. Far, far more frequent breakdowns that I've ever even heard of with another carrier. I've never once seen one of their trucks that DIDN'T have a check engine light on. That's just the level of maintenance to expect there.

I was running a cushy Florida to Dallas and back loop. They don't have that run anymore. Without it, I doubt you could pull down that kind of money with them, especially with the unprecedentedly insane amount of breakdowns.

 

Heyl advertised as home every 7-10 days when I applied. As soon as I started they changed their advertised hometime to every 10-14 days. They would get me home maybe every 25-35 days. I complained to my DM a lot. He did nothing. Eventually I gave my two weeks notice and someone above him (it's a smallish company) contacted me and said they'd guarantee I'd get home every 10-14 days if I stayed. From that point on I got home EXACTLY on day 14 every time, and never a single day sooner. It seemed like he was doing that our of spite. If he happened to get me to Florida after, say, 12 days he'd make me run local freight for two days. I NEVER got home in 13 days or less. I finally quit for good since exactly 14 days does NOT equal 10 to 14 days. If they promise a range it should be possible to get a number in that range besides the max.

 

Zero chance to go home between. The terminal was a good drive from my house so going home during a 10 hour break wasn't an option. Also, these local runs pretty much never had me shutting down at the terminal at the end of a day.