Diary of a current Swifty

Thanks for sharing your experience, gladiator. Swift certainly isn't perfect, but I don't believe any company is. I love trucking so I'm willing to take a few lumps to remain in this business.

Whydonchahey, it's a Prostar.

Once I was settled in my "new" truck, I got a load that had been T-called on the Memphis yard and took it to Sutherland, VA (793 pd miles). I delivered there on Sunday then went up to the yard in Richmond to spend the night. First thing Monday, I did a local run (34 pd miles) and then went to International Paper to get a load going to Amarillo, TX (1518 pd miles). Swift told me to pickup anytime between 0800-1100, but when I got there, IP told me I needed an appointment and since I didn't have one it would be about 1400 before they could load me. They were right, it was about 1400 when they told me to back in the dock. I was out of there and on my way about 1530.

I scaled the load and my steers were over 12,000. That's when I discovered the fifth wheel slider is not working on this truck. It's got an automatic switch that's supposed to release it and it didn't. I can't find any way to do it manually, so that caused some problems because I couldn't put much fuel in at a time. It was 50 gallons here and 50 gallons there. I made 3 fuel stops on this load, and was almost empty when I delivered. A real PITA, but I can't blame anyone but me because I should have checked everything when I got this truck.

Once in Amarillo, I had a live unload, then a pickup at the same place which was a drop and hook. Screwy, huh? I'm on my way to Hurricane, UT (pd miles 825). I made it to Albuquerque last night and I'm hoping the shop here can fix that fifth wheel slide. Also, I was looking at my pay statement and I didn't get the $25 local pay I should have for the trip from Jamestown, NJ to Avenel, NJ. I messaged my DM and she said she would check it out. We'll see what happens.

 

There was some argument over an assertion I made earlier in the thread about Swift being primarily a short haul company. So I decided to back that up with some numbers. For the year 2009, I did a total of 161 loads. They break down as follows:

<50 miles = 3
51-500 miles= 72
501-1000 miles= 70
1001-2000 miles= 15
2001+ miles= 1

So far for 2010, I've hauled 47 loads. They break down as follows:
<50 miles= 5
51-500 miles= 19
501-1000 miles= 16
1001-2000 miles= 6
2001+ miles= 1

Doesn't take a genius to see most of my loads are less than 1000 miles, which I believe qualifies as short haul. I was told by a recruiter before coming to work for Swift the average trip length for a solo driver was about 700 miles. My experience seems to prove that.

How about that? A recruiter told the truth for once!!

 

I thought that was only in certain western states, and that eastern states were always 12,000 max?