Comments/suggestions welcome. swift

Oh yea one more thing stay away from central refrigerated, Jerry Moyes basicly owns it , bought it for his daughter, yea right.

 

When I drove for Swift I never "cooked" my books came close but never had to. If you plan your trip proper and not accept anything that you can not do legally, you can keep a clean book. If those unseen situations that always happen will put you behind notify dispatch. I've ran into bad weather, accidents even equipment problems whatever that caused me to fall behind I'd get on the qualcom send a msg also I would sometimes call never did I receive a service failure.

 

Pb, I have turned down plenty of loads. Turn down pickups I could not make due to HOS. Turned down Loads I could not deliver legally due to HOS. Turned down loads with very little miles after already running a few low mile runs. Swift is a forced dispatch company but there are ligit reasons to turn down loads I was never punished for these ligit refusals. As for regional ya you make better miles 48 but when I ran western states I averaged 2500-2800 miles a week sometimes more sometimes less. I knew a driver at Swift you had to many creative entries in is book which cost him his job with Swift. As for Swift having illegals driving for them I must have been sleeping as I was not aware of that, I do know they do have many foreign born drivers as I have trained a couple. Also Swift does own that Mexican company. As for the driver caught hauling pot I don't believe Swift was implicated. Of course Swift was not the only company to have drivers do illegal things. As for Swift as a company to stay away from I have recommended both my sons to go work for them if they decide to go OTR.

 

This is old info from when I worked at Swift (applies to Schneider around the same time too) in 1991, but for what it's worth:

I would be given a "hot load", check the delivery times against my hours to run (400 miles away, due in 12 hours, but I HAD to take my 8 hour break in between), then inform my dispatcher I could not get the load there for 16 hours making it 4 hours late before I ever picked it up if it were put on me.

Dispatch would say go get it anyway and do the best you can. 16 hours later I deliver it, the customer is having a fit, and I get tagged with "service failure". If I ran "creatively" and got there on time. I got tagged by Safety for log fudging. Either way I was "wrong" and racking up strikes against me until I would be fired for it. I quit before that happened.

 

Y'know..

I'm still only a trainee, and it's not with Swift (I have issues with them - but I had those before I ever decided to drive.)

One thing they taught us in school, and I've implemented in front of my trainer. If I'm going to be late for a load - either P/U or DEL, I immediately notify dispatch. That much is policy in probably every company. I *also* call the next stop and let them know.

I won't say it makes them happy, but it makes them far less UNHAPPY than if I'd not called at all. Dispatch and customer service probably do their jobs just fine and call the customer... but in the end, it's MY face on the dock. I'm not going to take the chance that this one load is the one CS misses. Keep the customer in the loop - he may not be happy, but he WILL appreciate it.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to also call to confirm directions. So far (in a whole two weeks) I've seen only one set of directions that were so inaccurate that we couldn't find the place with a few minutes of looking around.

 

You are wise to not leave it in the hands of customer service. I went to pick up a load one time that had actually been assigned to a different driver who could not make the p/u. When I got their the shipping manager was quite upset because she had, not one, but four loads that were unable to be picked up from drivers. I did some serious damage control/customer satisfaction letting her know I would let my DM know. At first she told me they may not even get me loaded that day which would have had me stuck in a small town for the whole Thanksgiving weekend. A few minutes after she told me that she came out and said I could back into the door to get loaded because the could not load that days loads since the computer was down.

 

Now don't get me going on customer service, once I picked up a load in LA delivered in San Antonio followed by a pickup at same location going to Chyenne. They ask that I give tem my eta for delivery so they could call. I gave it to them and they never notified the customer. I arrived they almost refused the delivery. In the end they took the load but since they where not aware of my coming there was no pickup. Another time I had a blow out on trailer tire on I70 in Utah one 1 from any town heading for Colorado. By the time I was able to move again it was 7 hours (turn out more then a blow out) I still made it to consignee on time when I arrive they told me the load was canceled by Swift. They did take it after all it was a trailer full of Budwieser.

 

I guess if they hadn't taken it you could have had one heck of a party.

 

Again. we have over-simplification regarding creative logging It's NOT ALWAYS the driver's fault. I have been at receivers that have taken 5 hours to unload me. I planned my trip carefully, giving myself a cushion of 3 hours for the unload, and proceeded with the load. This particular load took 5 3/4 hours to unload. Why? who knows. But I was out of my 14hr day 2 hours before I was empty. I was told to leave the facility or be arrested for trespassing when I told them I was out of hours. My point is, you can plan appropriately all you want, give yourself a reasonable amount of time for the load, and still have to log illegally just to get the heck out of the shipper/receiver. Any driver with some experience knows this! As to Swift, I have heard that recently, they are looking for reasons to get rid of truck drivers because of the economic situation with the outrageous fuel prices. And, they always have a new crop of student and new divers to work at coolie wages to keep their freight moving. Tenden, it's rough out there right now for any trucker And the owner ops, I say hats off to you guys, as you're really getting screwed with the fuel prices. It's a mess right now with all of the DOT crap, fuel prices, heartless companies with bottom line agenda of profits profits profits, then F the driver. And now to make everything even more pleasant, we have the increasing fad of "no idle" in our state!

 

Actually I meant, the fad of no idle in ALL states is increasing. sorry