Heartland Express, Inc. - Coralville, Ia.?

I've been at Heartless about four years now, and with the recession, getting miles is tough here. I got lucky last week and got 2600. The prior three were 1800, 1850, and 1500. Last month I had one 1300 week. There is no more regional work here they just send you where they need you. When it's time for you to go home, they will suddenly find alot of xtra locals or a relay for you to do. You will stay stressed out and pissed off most of the time. If you don't like dealing with multiple dispatchers who are rude arrogant and don't bother to identify themselves on the qual-com, stay away. I'm on my tenth dispatcher, and none of them knew beans about trucking let alone otr driving. And, they could not care less. They stay in a constant state of fear and are terrified of the load planners who actually run the drivers and look over these whipping boys shoulders constanly. I had one disp. quit and it was 10 days before the new one even identified himself.
Now, as for quitting with notice, never do that at Heartland. If you're going to quit, do it on a Monday when you are at home terminal. Heartless takes perverse pleasure in dumping drivers out at remote terminals when they give notice. You see, these Bozos think Heartless is so perfect that only an ingrate would want to quit and so they are offended. Of course they fire people alot around here too, and with their anti-driver attitude, alot are still quitting. I can't tell you how many enraged drivers I have seen on their way out sitting on piles of their stuff at our terminals. I have given a couple rides to points distant in my unit even though I would get fired if Heartless knew about it. You will need a special type of mental toughness and a thick skin to hang on at Heartless because God knows you're going to be insulted, talked to like a mangy dog, forgotten, parked for long hours, and given some of the crappiest loads in the industry. And when you get to the terminals ahh the fun really starts. But I'm too tired to go into it now. Don't worry though, I kept a diary of every load I ever hauled for Heartless (one could also add brainless) and will post more stuff soon. I've had fun reading these accounts, but for anybody considering Heartless, you can't even believe the mind-bending s#$t they're capable of.

 

100% the truth. Been there and done that! And make sure you can always get a ride, with all your stuff you take with you when your out. Otherwise you may be dumping alot of your belongings in a faraway land, just to be able to get home. And expect lies on your DAC. Thank God I knew cya and kept copies of everything, to clear up the DAC. And they lied to IA employment office. Yes I had my copies and pictures for proof and got my unemployment comp. They don't like having to pay out.

 

"RipTide - I work for HAEI now (6 months)....I am look hard to go else ware."

Rip Tide before you start having companies call for a reference. Get a copy of your DAC and get your stuff out of your truck. They will take or lock down your truck and not at your home terminal. And lie on your DAC.

 

When I quit them I was at the Columbus terminal. The truck I was driving I had picked up at the Dubois Pa terminal. They were going to charge me $1 per mile to get that truck back to the Dubois terminal. I was under a load going to NJ so I drove to Dubois and quit there. My gf followed me and picked me up. Make sure you have transportation when you quit or you will be stuck in the middle of wherever they decide to dump you. Heartland, to me, was one of the worst companies I worked for in 30 years of trucking. They were worse than CRST{mid 80's} and National Freight{mid 90's}.

 

#5.Heartland has a bad reputation? I dont know where you get your info from but i ran for heartland for two years up until i had to come off the road to be with a wife and new son. They always....ALWAYS took great care of us no matter what! Anytime i needed time off i got it,anytime we could not get a load there on time it was no problem,Anytime i called in for info on the load i got it and any time i called in i was treated with respect by dispatch and never had a problem with any of them. They ran me as a solo driver as well as a team (with my wife ) and they never let us sit for more than a few hrs,we always made top dollar with them and never ran us ( or me as a solo driver ) to the point that we would be driving over our time.

We ran out of the Kingsport location as well as the Coralville IA location and they both took great care of us. I talked to just about every Heartland driver a ran into and they were all completly happy with them,except for those few drivers that would rather screw off than work!

I got sick coming out of Cali with a very hot load on my way to NC so i called in told them that i could not drive and that my wife could not because she was to be in the sleeper for another 8 hrs. They sent an O/O out to get the load and told me to take as much time as i needed, even offered to call a Doctor and pay the bill if needed just to make sure i would be OK. Never heard a bad thing said by any of the dispatchers about it,they only wanted to know if i were feeling better. They never told me that if i or we did not do this or that that we would lose our jobs,NEVER!

>>>>>1. Get a laptop and routing software, such as MS Streets & Trips. A must have because you will have to route yourself.
2. Keep a backup plan for the day you have to bail out, or find yourself terminated unexpectedly.
3. Prepare yourself to be talked to like a dog, and make yourself like it as long as you can.
4. Use personality and try to cajole them into giving you better loads, but this isn’t going to work in the long term.<<<<​

1 and 3 are all BS.4 is just the way trucking is no matter where you are,you never get the load you want every time. Anytime i got a BS load from Heartland they made it up to me big time on the next load. Just as they did with everyone else! 1 is just the way that most other comanies are,they think that you will have enough brains to find your way around and that they will not have to hold your hand to get the load for point A to B. Most if not all the loads that we got from them had all the details needed and if they did not...then that is was the map and cel phone were for! #2 is for those drivers that make it a habbit of jumping from job to job. If you dont conduct your self as a pro driver then they or anyone else will treat you as such,just another flunky driver!




Everything i have read on the net says that Heartland has a great rep and that they pay well and take care of not only the equipment but their drivers as well. Hell to this day anytime i talk to a driver they say they are happy with them so i dont know what this guys problem is. The only people that you hear complain about them or just about any other company out there are the ones that did not want to do the job in the first place!


I would go back to them in a heartbeat and i would tell anyone else to do the same! 60% turn over rate? Thats because 60% of the total amount of drivers nation wide would rather stop at every truck stop and screw off rahter than do the job the were hired for!

Which give the other 40% of us a bad name.

 

are you saying CRST improved since the mid 80s? I find that hard to believe.

 

60 % that's low I believe in this bussiness.

Do your own rting? #### we alllways had to in the early years.
That's what maps are for...
What did you do before qualcoms?
Where you even born then. haha

Alot of compaines have higher turnover yes.

 

I have never driven for Heartland Express. I have driven for some major carriers until I decided to own my truck. I never asked a dispatcher to route me anywhere. If you can"t read a road atlas as far as I'm concerned you have no business being in a truck. If you need someone or something to tell you how to get from Origin to Destination you really need to find a different job. These posts drive me crazy. Whining and crying because a company refuses to hold your hand and guide you minute by minute from the time you load until you deliver. HELL people it's called thinking for yourself and just plain old Common Sense. I see less and less of either in these new drivers and it ain't the company's fault. It's YOURS!! Point blank I can read a road atlas and frankly I'm better at getting from Origin to Destination than the qualcom routing is and I've been told so. I used to spend my wait time studying a road atlas, picking an origin city and destination city and see how close I could get to empty miles and loaded miles. Quit whining and crying for someone to hold your hand and pick up and deliver the freight. That's the job!! If you don't like it find something else to make your living.

 

What I said was that they were not as bad as Heartland, at least that is what I meant. When I worked for CRST in the mid 80's they had more solo drivers than they did teams. They were just starting to push everyone to team. They kept me loaded, average 2800 - 3200 mile per week running solo, between the east coast and Nebraska Oklahoma and Texas. I was home evry weekend and we got paid twice a week. Never had a problem with payroll. If you could put up with the junky slow truck {58mph} you had to drive it wasn't that bad a place to work. The problems started when I let them talk me into training for them. I trained 1 driver for them and told them I wanted to go back solo and it was downhill from there. They tried to starve me into training for them. 1500 miles a week and never home. Thats when I told them bye bye. From what I hear they have been going downhill ever since. I was comparing my experience with Heartland to my experience with CRST. They both sucked, but Heartland sucked more.

 

I've driven trucks now for 36 years. Back in the mid 70's into the 80's I owned my own for 13 years.

I made the big mistake of thinking Heartland was a good company and ran for them for a year out of Phoenix. IT WAS THE WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE. THEY ARE THE WORST COMPANY TO DRIVE FOR, plain and simple.

They have the nickname of Heartless for a good reason. Most of their loads are loads that other carriers have refused because their is not enough time to get it there legally or for other reasons.

The norm for Heartland is the driver will dispatched very early for the pick up and then sit and wait at the shipper. Customer service is number one at Heartland even at the expense of their driver. You can end up sitting at a shipper for 6 or 8 hours, be loaded late and than be told you MUST deliver on time. If you tell them you can't do it safely or legally you will be put on a list and your miles will be cut until you quit.

Those are the simple facts. They do pay the highest rates but at the expense of the driver. Even if you run illegal you will not get many miles with them because of layovers.

I stuck it out for a year because I've never let a company bet me, but there is no winning with Heartland. YOU ARE JUST A STEERING WHEEL HOLDER TO THEM, and THEY WILL TELL YOU THAT.

In the next couple of months I'm hanging driving up. It's gotten to be a treible job with low pay. All I can say is that in 36 years of driving, Heartland was the worst company I worked for. They have NO RESPECT for their drivers.

That last post had to be a company plant or a recruiter.