Heartland Express, Inc. - Coralville, Ia.?

heartland has one of the worst reputations in the industry that I know of for leaving a driver sitting at a customer for hours waiting to be loaded and then wanting that driver to deliver the load after they are legally out of hours. They do pay well, but that money is not easily earned.

And this is not a company that I would ever be able to recommend to anyone. Just too many negatives to ever give them a thumbs up. Heartland has been described as the closest you can get to working in a factory and still be behind the wheel.

 

that's not really good pay,smt042) i mean after all, at "up to 50¢ per mile, that's not too many miles.............a company can "offer" to pay you "up to" $1.00 per mile, but if the miles ain't there, id' rather work for say 40¢ per mile, and get the miles a Heartland driver isn't getting.......

i work as a yardman/supervisor, i work just under 9.5 - 10 hours per day, and my "gross pay" is just under $1,000.00 per week, and no road aggravation, etc,etc...........looks like i'm doing just fine over a Heartland driver, any day......:smt042


right about now, i'm thinking the original poster "justadriver" is really, "just a recruiter"..............

that can be "about" 1900 to miles per week..............who can survive on that out there on the road..........??

good-bye, Mr. Recruiter..........(at least i think you are...?) telling us the real truth.......

 

A lot of that may depend on the driver and where he is dispatched out of. When I was a OTR driver I parked at an airport near my home. There was and still is a HL driver that parks there. He is there every week end. I have talked to him seveal times about his company he said that they get him plenty of miles and that he has not had any problems with them. I knew a driver that left my last OTR co. He left to go with them. I seen him one day back in the yard and asked him what happened. He told me that a lot of perks he had he lost when he went with them. Like tolls and such, free showers from the drivers pay back card. I have never driven for heartland. I have heard a lot of negative about them and some good, but was shocked about the students. I never knew of them to be a training company. The ads in the paper here say no students.

 

Whats the big deal routing yourself. I do it and I'm a rookie its not that hard.

 

I'v always routed myself and wouldn't want it any other way. I won't work for someone who tells me the exact route I need to drive regaurdless of problems or not.

I spoke with there recruiter there and was IMEDIATLY put off. She was ####y and condescending. Plus they started out offering me $.50 cpm then as we talked it kept going down. Aparently they don't accept local work as experience even though I drive as many miles as a regional driver, only difference is I don't sleep in the truck. I did local for 4 years after my son was born, then I have 8 years otr.

 

oh ya, they wanted me to PROOVE my experience with documentation. Aparently checking with past employers isn't enough. they wanted log books from over 12 years ago to show my OTR experience. WHO keeps that stuff that long??? nobody, and they know it. That's how they get around hiring at there $.50cpm rate

 

I'm reading a heartland brochure, and according to it they DO NOT take grads. 1 year OTR minimum. Just FYI.

 

I live in there new western regional area where they say they hire from and was told that I need to relocate to Phoenix AZ because thats where the terminal is and I would have to leave the truck there when/if I take the weekends off. I refereed them to another one of there drivers I have been friends with for several years who takes her home time where ever she wants in the region and was told:
'she must have a special arrangement'.
'Would you be willing to make an arrangement like that with me so I don't need to move, maybe I could stay out longer?'
'No'.
'Goodbye'
**click**

 

I drove for heartland twice. Once as a solo and the other time with my wife and i would like to respond to this post.

They did not at any time tell me or my wife and i that we HAD to take a load if we were out of hours. At any time if i told them that i was low on hours they would tell me to take a brake or dispatch me or us on a short load.

This is news to me! Anytime while behind the wheel of a heartland truck i can not ever remember anyone saying we drove for a bad company. I also have not heard anyone say this at any other time.

>Funny thing is that at the terminal in Coralville Iowa and Kingsport TN i don't remember seeing any poor looking cars at ether lot. Of the 4 fleet mangers i knew they all had set time in a truck. One had over 1 million safe miles under his belt. Also. Any time i walked into the building and i met the people that knew my name they would speak to me, at both locations.

Both i and my wife were and are very happy with the way we were treated at Heartland. As far as the liar comment goes i will just let that slide. No point in getting band from this forum for a foolish comment like that.

Whats wrong with that? If you were the owner of a large company you would want to save as much money as you could by fueling at the terminal. Its a lot cheaper that way and we were never told to pass by with out fueling at any time and they WOULD raise #### if you did not!

More BS! When i was a solo they never pushed me this hard and i don't ever remember any other driver saying they did them ether. When we ran team for them they did not push us beyond our limits and if we told them we wanted to take a little brake even if we were under a load they would call ahead and reschedule the pick up time or delivery date and time.<

Once more this is total BS!

The only reason we stopped driving for them was so that i could be home when my wife had our son, They let us run with the doctors permission up until 3 weeks before the due date. The reason i left the first time was to be with my wife for the 2 months that she was in training with the understanding that once she had on year of set time we could come back and we did. The reason i did not go back is because i did not want to be away from home but they still call at least once a year to offer me a job and i have a open invitation to come back at anytime i'm ready.

My advise to any of you is to talk to a Heartland driver that you run into and ask them and see for your self if they liked or disliked driving for them because when it comes to this drivers comments one of 2 things happened.

#1. He had a very poor fleet manger and which point he should have talked to management and told them the problems he was having. I promise you they would have sent that guy packing quick fast and in a hurry!

#2. This guy did not want to run. He wanted to sit around the truck stop and BS with the other lazy drivers. He wanted to take his time while driving so he could stop for anything at anytime he felt the need to.

A company is what you make of it. If you act as a professional driver then you will be treated as such but if you act like a " trashy trucker " then don't be surprised if they don't want to remember your name!