Flatbed, Tanker, Reefer, et cetera, educate me on what it all means!

Get your cdl with Swift and then go to Melton, Maverick or TMC for Flatbed. Dry Van, you'll be so fat you won't be able to see your own feet in 6 months, because you just sit on your ###. Reefer is the same, plus you get the added bonus of standing outside fueling a treating the fuel for a third diesel tank after you get done washing beer and blood out of a trailer that is -20, when it is -5 outside.

Other than flatbed, tanker also sounds nice and like it pays very well. Talk to @Chinatown about where to go on that one.

 

I'm averaging 2900 miles a week at Swift. My take home was 700 dollars last week, and that was taking 4 days home time. Making .42cpm as a platinum ranked driver after 2 months. Average length of haul for me this far has been 782 miles.

I have all of my endorsements though, which also helps, because when they need someone to haul a van load of hazmat chemicals over a certain weight, I also make money for using my tanker endorsement.

There is money to be made at Swift. The only times I have had to sit where between Christmas and New Year's Day, on the east coast, in a terrible freight lane. If you are proactive and call the planners or walk your lazy ### into the terminal and talk to them face to face about what their needs are and what your needs are and how to meet in the middle, they usually keep you stacked with loads. Maybe your experience differs, but I have very few complaints about Swift apart from how my mentor treated me.

And regarding Swift training, people can talk #### on it all they want. I watched people from every private and company sponsored cdl mill in Texas fail at DPS on their pretrip. Didn't even get to back the trailer or take their road test. The few who did pass the pretrip, couldn't back the trailer. And the one or two who made it to the driving test hit curbs.

Swift pumped full classes of people out that got their cdl. I had 22 people when my class started. 14 made it through the first week. 13 of 14 have their cdl and have upgraded to solo, with one of them giving up because he bumped a curb on his driving test and his wife wouldn't let him stay another week with no income coming in.

And costwise, Swift is #### near the cheapest. Most of these private cdl mills cost at least a couple thousand more. And then if you manage to get your cdl, you still almost always have to start with a mega carrier anyway to get your experience and pay your dues.

Nothing wrong with Swift at all. They are a means to an end and they have freight to keep you moving. And when I told the planners I needed home time on the 19th, 2200 miles from home, they stacked me with 3 loads within about 20 minutes, that had me at my front door at 9am on the 19th, with a PTA set by them for the 23rd at 23:59.

I'm on schedule to clear 60k this year if I keep running like I am, and that's not including bonuses and pay increases. I'm not a mentor and I'm not a lease op. Company driver.

 

Man, you make it sound so darn enticing. Have you considered going into recruiting?

 

What's this about their tanker side not doing well? I'm considering applying there in the near future.

 

Its just hear-sey from what I've heard on here. I'll see if i can find the thread again.

 

I can't find it, but i just did a search for "prime tanker" and from what I just read on those few threads it was BS anyway. The most recent threads were positive.