Any team or solo drivers from US Express ?

You bring an empty trailer to FedEx & they'll have a loaded trailer waiting for you to hook up & go

FedEx is for team drivers.

US Xpress will let you take the truck home with you

Ask as many questions as you want. We drivers gotta help one another out.

 

If you want to pass the physical for sure then I suggest the Markham terminal. Brian who does the orientation is a cool guy. He isn't super strict like I've heard at other terminals. The Shippensburg, MA seems to send people home a lot.

The US Xpress physical is easy. Its the first thing you do on the first day. It consist of getting under a table & touching the wall. Getting on top of the table. Walking with 70lbs in a milk crate. Its super easy. Anyone can do it. You will not fail. Guaranteed.

US Xpress expects you to go out once you get done with orientation. Pray that they have a truck waiting for you. Otherwise, you could be sitting around at the terminal with all your personal belongings. Markham is pretty good about having trucks. Teams usually get assigned a truck right away.

You could train her as long as you don't have any accidents, incidents, tickets, etc.

If your going to do it without your wife, make sure you team with someone. The best loads goes to teams at US Xpress.

In all honesty, I would recommend you & your wife join at the same time. The reason being that after a year....you can move onto a better paying, better hometime company. If your wife joins a year later then you'll be stuck at a Mega-Carrier for TWO years.

 

Your wife, if you are solo, can ride with you after the probationary period; you have to pay the insurance for her which isn't much and she has to have paperwork sent into them. USX will issue her a rider that she is allowed on the truck as a passenger. There are places though, if she is not an employee of USX, that she may not be allowed back to the docks while you are loaded/unloaded; this includes places like Dow Chemical, some railroad yards, Michelin Tires. They usually have a waiting room they can stay in, the railroad maybe not, it maybe right there at the guard shack. It maybe just a few times a year, but always plan ahead for something like this.

 

My husband trained for another company and had at least 3 woman he trained. He didn't have many problems with the women other than one who had a fiancee that she ended up getting into a fight with and then took it out on hubby and the truck (slamming cabinet doors, throwing things, etc.), they went through the Training coordinator as leader so if either had problems they could call and discuss the situation, and he had me also. He had one lady who could not quite figure how to backup to the dock without problems, bought a toy semi for her to practice with. It wasn't till she was finally in her own truck that she said she would go back over what he said and she got it figured out. He had one lady who never drove at night before, she had made it through Phase 1 training. He taught her how to go through curves, not let lights bother her etc.

He got to the point when he went to Phase 1 trainer that he kept his students from the start till they graduated to their own truck, unlike the setup at the company and some programs which start out with one for awhile and graduate to a second finishing trainer. They knew what he knew including trip planning, routing, and how to. He said women could shift better than men once they got the hang of it, were more gentle with the shifting instead of just jamming it where ever it hit like men would do. They could multitask better then men could. The could follow mapping better.

But he slept with one eye open almost till the very last usually, just in case


I have read on TTR where teams split the driving to 2 different shifts, like 3am-3pm or whatever hours you decide. This way each has their own hours and this is what they stick with, whatever happens on your time is yours. You cannot drive a few hours and switch out, you have to log in and out and once you open that window up you have only 14hrs between driving and off duty and then you have to have the 10 hr break. With teams they use to plan on the truck never stopping, doing rolling resets, etc. Now with the new HOS it sounds like at one person is really having to take a lot of hours off in- order to accomplish the restart. Unless you do a recap and keep your driving hours down to 8.75 hrs. each day where you don't have to worry about the restart.

He would stop for showers and laundry and getting food, he tried to make sure their comfort came first, unlike some of the horror stories you hear. If the load was a tight load though, the load came first and the shower would get skipped till they headed back out. Baby wipes come in handy for anyone just in case. Even teaming though there are times you might get to sit awhile waiting for a load, this is when you hope to be at a truckstop or like in OHio they have the oasis with showers and laundry for truckers, then you can catch up on stuff also.

The one complaint my husband had about sleeping while the truck was moving, was the roads that are in such sad shape all over now, the potholes are terrible.

 

Trainers are hit or miss. We went thru 2 each. My first one sucked. Wifes first one was nice but weird. My second trainer was awesome. You can request him. Victor King is his name & does train females. He has been driving off & on since the 70s. I learned A LOT & he took me to the best places to eat across the country. We talk to this day. My wifes second trainer was even more weird. At that point, she decided to stick with him so we could be done with training.

We made a sheet that I can email you that will make the job easier. It has all the info you need to write down that shippers, receivers, US Xpress will ask for.

We were comfortable went we went out. The DriverTech has a GPS in it. We never bought our own. If you use the GPS, Rand McNally Atlas & Google Maps...you'll be okay.

The companies upgrade test is very easy. We did it at the Tunnel Hill, GA terminal. The written test, it's open book but I didn't have the book with me. Pretty sure I failed it but they passed me anyway. The backing & road test was easy.

Wife drove during the day & I drove at night. We always kept a schedule. She drove from 7am to 7pm then we would switch. I would wake up whenever she needed my help. Since most deliveries are during the day....I'd be up helping her dock, navigating thru cities, etc. We drove about 10 hours a day. Left an hour to find a place to switch.

We didn't park for the night much since we were teaming. When we did, it was mostly at truck stops. If those are full, we would park at rest stops. There are a lot of rest stops that are nice. The Ohio turnpike has plenty of parking & FREE showers for truckers. We showered at Pilot/Flying J since that was where we fueled up at. Sign up for the Pilot/Flying, TA/Petro, Loves rewards cards when you get out here. You get a free team shower when you buy more than 50 gallons of fuel. Not only do you get free showers at truck stops but also points. With our points, we bought a CB, air hose, tire gauge, dash cam. All for free ! That is one of the benefits of teaming you'll like.

We would shower everyday, usually in the middle of the day. The truck stop & the showers are not busy at that time. We did laundry once a week at a truck stop. When we switched over to reefer at US Xpress, it would get us once a week to the Colton, CA terminal so we started doing laundry there. The company terminals have free showers & laundry. Most US Xpress terminals have a mini-van you can borrow for an hour if you want to go shopping or they can drop you off & pick you up if its going to take more than an hour.

 

How many weeks were ya'll out with a trainer?