ATS Freeway

Yes, old advertising of last year loadboard rates

 

That is the fleet average over the last few months. I am going to go work for them this week...so I will update later and let you know how it goes.

 

When I went to the website I could not help but notice that there was no dot number, mc number or company name on any of the photos. Strange.

 

I just got my Temp Registration emailed to me Friday, and the DOT number was 2094527
http://safer.fmcsa.dot.gov/query.as...apshot&query_param=USDOT&query_string=2094527

 

I went to Orientation & Safety class yesterday morning, and out of the 5 different safety classes that I have ever been to, this one was the best. It was pro! Good info on what drivers have been getting caught doing, and how they got caught. It was held by a consultant off site, the boss gave us the keys to his Mercedes to drive there. Then he sent us to a nice hotel and told us to keep the car, see you in the morning. Great experience so far...

 

Yesterday started out great, the Comfort Inn hotel breakfast was awesome. Bacon, Sausage, Biscuits, Scrambled Eggs w/cheese, fried potatoes, yogurt, cereal, bagels, doughnuts, apples, oranges, steamed rice, waffle maker, hard boiled eggs and a few more items. Took the Mercedes to the office and was greeted by the pretty office ladies. 30 minutes of paperwork, then met with Steve who does load planning. He showed us on the DAT load board that Chicago & Dallas has 2x as many trucks as their are loads and many trucks are sitting with no load. Yet, he still got all of us a load paying $2/mile or more.

He said that they get the big $ because of great CSA scores, Safety and No-Violations is their #1 priority! If you make the same mistake again after...well let me put it like this, If I make a mistake on logs, go thru training again, and keep making the same violation then he will replace me. I get an equipment violation, then a few weeks later get the same violation because I did not fix it...I will be replaced. Kinda harsh, but I am glad I am not making 30cpm less because they keep some lazy idiot on that ruins it for the rest of us. They hire Experienced Owner Operators with good records ONLY.

We run paper logs, but he said that his routes can easily be driven legally and still make $5000/wk in the slow times. We talked about slow season, and surprisingly January & February are busy for him, and August is his slowest month. That works for me, August is much better weather for a fishing vacation at the lake.
That was all I had time for, I had to go pick up a 2013 dry-van rental for $650 a month if I remember right. Not bad since if you rent or own a trailer they pay the 88% of load. 10 minutes later, I am driving with No $ out of pocket and a fuel card on my way to pick up load.

What really surprised me the most was the expectation of honesty, on both ends. He wants the Truth, no matter what. I have never got a rate confirmation sheet that goes from broker to planner before at any company, so I was never sure if they were double brokering the load thru themselves and skimming $...which is often suspected.

Steve emailed me the Rate Confirmation page and said it is his policy to always send those to us. Wow, talk about transparency, looks like honesty in action to me. Nice to see all the addresses, contact info, delivery notes and $ on one page. Even had a note about delivery in Eastern Time.