Averitt or Heartland Express

The night runs are gravy. Terminal to terminal lightweight LTL trailers. Drop & hook both ends.
Often 400-500 miles, gotta be on time. And you always get your 10 hours before and after.

 

Every Heartland driver i have met was not very happy.Low miles,slow trucks and not allowed to idle.
I talked to several of them that pick up at the same place i did.
It was 90 degrees in the parking lot and they all had the windows down sweating their ##### off...

 

I keep seeing comments from people that get half truths from people.
I am regional, as such I am home 3-4 weekends a month. My miles are not super high, but I am home most weekends. The company average is around 2200 miles per week, and I fall pretty close to that. Actually a little higher.

System drivers. Heartlands version of OTR are home 1-2 weekends per month. Depends on several factors, but mainly where the driver lives and who his dispatcher is. If he is in a poor area, or has a bad dispatcher, then he will not get home as much.

The idle thing depends on the driver. If it is 90 degrees I will be idling my truck. They will not say anything. Just if your trucks idle percentage goes too high the truck slows down. If it gets above 40% idle then it caps out at 60. This is on the driver and planners. Since the truck should not be sitting that much. 40% idle is insane.
This program is on all the prostar's bought in 2008-2010. The new prostars no longer have this program turned on. So the driver can idle.
The truck also will not idle more than 5 min if temps are between 55-74. Not really a reason to idle at those temps anyway. So what is the issue.

Drivers that believe they should be able to idle there trucks in any temps. Any time stopped, should be owner OPs, not company drivers. Them wasting fuel idleing when not needed keep my pay rate down.

 

I worked for Averitt for over 8 years...it is a great company. Made a ton of money while there. Good,clean trucks too.

 

Until you know exactly what you will be doing, it's safe to say you should gross between $800 to 1200.
There are so many variables, but I know somebody on Dollar General that was making $950-1100 right off the bat.
That may not be big money for some folks, but that's home every weekend and good benefits to go with it.

 

You may make that a week at Heartland gross pay. But not every week.
And you will not take home that much. They have no perdiem. So all pay is mileage.
No other pay is done often either. Just the mileage pay.
No detention, no layover, no on time delivery pay.
They do pay 15 bucks for every extra stop. But that is about it.
I think they may be brining some of that back soon. But so far I have not seen it.

 

Heartland does not even do layover pay ChromeDome????

 

They will pay you 50 bucks if you did not run that day at all.
Not very often that you will have this occur. They will find a way to get you moving between midnight and midnight.
I have only sat that long on one occasion that I can recall.