Heartland Express~Russ Would Be Rolling Over....

Where do you live? Would need you own truck for Landstar.

 

Heard good and bad about Landstar.Maybe browse the favorite trucking company section and get some ideas there.

 

Jacksonville FL
There are many trucking companies here..
SAIA Terminal is right next to heartless express

 

I can confirm all except the part about drivers dying from extreme temps. But, I had a heavy comforter that kept me warm below freezing and screens and a powerful fan for the summer. Anytime those things weren't enough, I idled the truck. I'm not sure what it was like when the old man was alive, but I averaged 2200 miles a week even with all the relays. However, they liked to run me so tight on hours that often times, I had to shutdown at a customer, then have that customer knock on my truck multiple times, waking me up to back in and such DURING my break. Once done, I never could go back to sleep. Then I had to leave out a few hours later, driving on 4 hours of broken up sleep, if I was lucky. Couldn't catch up on rest at home because I always got sent home with a load and had to leave in the middle of the night to deliver on time. If I called the driver liaison with a problem, she yelled at me. I had a hard time getting into a truck stop long enough to shower. Always had dispatch up my a#s. The one Christmas I was with them, I got sent home for exactly 24 hours, then had to drive Christmas night. I constantly got harassed to get a hair cut even when I kept it within their guidelines. The only good thing about them was the high pay and well maintained equipment. But when you get so tired that you start making dumb mistakes and have no personal life, it's time to hand them the keys back and move on. Money isn't everything. Being treated like a machine isn't worth it. I dealt with it for 15 months before finally moving on. They can go take a flying leap.

 

I had one of their recruiters calling me last year, gave me a 1/2 hour speil on how great their company is, how they bought out gti, blah blah blah,,, I was with a mega company at that time already, and was looking to go back to a smaller outfit. I couldn't help but notice the caller id placing the location of that recruiter as an area that was not even near any of HE's terminals, but from the background noise, it was the guy's house! I them them "not interested" and ended that call. I'm glad I did, I'm with a small outfit now that actually cares about its drivers, runs me good, and and doesn't resort to the bs micromanaging(or even those stupid "driver cams") that the mega's and their imitators(Veriha, PTI) engage in.

 

Fifty cents a mile is theft on short hauls. as any owner operator will tell you. The rate is double or triple or more

 

Another thing about Heartland is that they're arrogant as hell. They don't just say they're the best out there, they actually believe it. The orientation director treats the new hires like #### and says things like, "If you're not driving for us, you're driving for them. If you leave to drive for them, it's going to be somebody you don't want to drive for, then you'll come crawling back to Heartland." What a joke.

Also, when you go on vacation, they take the truck from you. You have to take it to a terminal, clean your stuff out of it, then figure out how you're getting home. Then how you're getting back to a terminal for another truck afterwards. They say it's because they like to keep their trucks moving, but I don't buy it. I suspect it's to make people not want to take vacations.

If that isn't bad enough, try talking to some of their drivers. There's a lot of pissed off Heartland drivers out there. Big red flag. If you're too much of a squeaky wheel, they'll fire you without notice. That's how they got the nicknames, "Heartless" and "Heartbroke."

 

Speaking of them buying GTI, they've actually lost some drivers because of that. HE drivers who didn't like GTI and vice versa. Most left because we all know how screwed up things get when a company gets too big. Just look at Swift and how their drivers are treated.

 

Basically they've turned into another big mega. Not much left for good companies out of Iowa now...I think hummer is one of the only good Iowa outfits left, now that GSTC was sold by the original owner's scumbag son-in-law, and Barr Nunn got bought out by Knight.

 

Isn't monson and sons out of Iowa . Their thread looks pretty good