Any Info about Heartland Express??

I have been reading all the posts about Heartland for the past month. I have seen alot of positives about them. 1 question tho, does anybody know about thier Refresher Driving Positions. I will need a refresher since being out of the business for 6 years. I already filled out the online app and will call on monday.

 

I think they still require some OTR in the past 3 years. Even with the refresher. It is an insurance thing. They do not have a school or anything. The refresher that they do is just sending you out with a driver for a week or two. Not like the training company's do. Let me know what they say though. So I will know what to tell the next person.

 

Ok so I wont be able to get the physical faxed until tomorrow morning. Once they send the app over to safety, how long does it usually take to get a yes or no?

 

A couple days at the most, I think. It has been a few years since I applied. I really cannot remember.

 

ok....would anyone on this heartland express help me out..... I live in vermont and see there trucks all the time in VT but does anyone work fo rthem that could tell me if they do hire out of vt and where i would run? and what my hometime will be? what would be the pay?? anyone???????? let me know thanks!!!!

 

I believe that if you are seeing them running your area then you should be in the hiring area. We deliver to several company's in VT. Plus have a couple shippers in the area. But most of our trucks that go up that way haul loads out of Maine out.
You would have a choice of Northeast regional or System. I believe the pay is about the same for both, but you would have to check the website to be sure.
They require 1 year recent OTR. And I believe that cap pay is at 8 years OTR, as long as it is proven.
Cap pay including safety bonus is .49 cpm. If you can get it. They like to play games with that last couple cpm at times. I have had several drivers that said they could not start at cap. Even with the needed experience.
Allot of the northeast regions freight is short. The Maine loads out are mostly to PA or NY.
The pay for that region is highest the company has, due to the rates they receive for the loads and the shorter miles. Going system and staying out a few weeks at a time should help with miles a good bit in that area.

 

Thanks for getting back to me.........would you be home ervey weekend???? and could u run down to maryland/Va Area? or just maine vt ,ny? I tried calling a recruiter but you know how thery are..... said they dont hire out of Vermont.......i am trying to find a decent OTR job and make good money get back to me.......

 

They have a terminal in Carlisle, and one in Richmond. Those are the 2 Northeast regional terminals.
I did not know that they did not hire out of VT. Good to know for anyone that asks on here some other time. Maine is probably the same.
Those are at the Northern Tip of the running area. So I do not know why they do not hire from there. Unless we do not do Friday or weekend delivery's to that area, in which case it would be tough to get home. I would rather not say on here who the customers are, since that is never a good thing to post on a forum. So not really sure of delivery schedules.
They run allot in MD and VA. As in hundreds of loads per day. But parts of MD are harder to get to. Like south of Waldorf. We do deliver there, but not as often as we go thru the DC area, Baltimore (where we have a drop yard), and even over to Smyrna DE.
If it is an interstate in MD or VA, we are all over it.

I am home every weekend. But I am dedicated. Normal for regional is home 2-3 weekends per month. But part of that depends on where you live, and if you want to run OTR or regional. OTR you are home 1-2 weekends per month. If you want every other weekend it can be done. But you really need to stay on your dispatch to make sure it happens.

 

does anyone have any info on driving team for heartland and inverters. seen a heartland truck with a tv on.. interested in info as to do they run elog, speed of trucks, prepass,ezpass, forced to install and run with chains or anything that might be helpful to know thats not typical recruiter speech. thanks

 

TV would have been 12v. Since they do not allow inverters in trucks.
Yes, they are on e-logs. But have gotten pretty darn good at keeping mileage up legally.
They have ez pass for drivers in OH region, Carlisle region, and Richmond region. And available for system drivers.
No prepass. But it is rare that we are ever stopped at scales due to very good safety ratings.
Heartland trucks do not carry chains, and we do not use chains. If the snow gets that bad we stop and they reschedule appt. No load is worth a wrecked truck or a life.

On the team issue I do not know a ton. I have met several teams, but never really asked too many questions. From what I gather they are in the 4500 miles to 5000 miles per week range. Though some have claimed some 6000 mile weeks.
Most of our freight is short to medium haul. So most loads are less than 600 miles. But we do have several accts that we run every day that we have to swap the loads between several trucks to deliver on time. So I know that team freight is available. And I am sure we have some long runs from the midwest. The vast majority of our contracts are east of the Rocky's. We have a western regional fleet that does most of the California stuff. Nobody that lives east of the Rocky's ever sees much of that. They get swapped out at a terminal.
Most of our fleet is single bunk trucks. They buy some double bunks for our teams. But I would guess that we have less than 50 teams in the whole company. And several I have talked to were couples that had teamed, but then split and run regional. So they get home more, and make about the same money or possibly more.