Kllm

I think his post was a joke. Basically if your eating out of a dumpster, then KLLM will give you a better life. That's how I read it.

 

That is the great American rip off...Do not lease. The cards are stacked against you big time. Proabability factors of you traveling long and hard hours and getting pulled off the road long before the lease is up are important factors. But: it's a "walk away program". So of course, if something happens (and it probably will), "we'll just take our truck back" BYE. And then, the revolving door spins again.

It is one hell of a sad state that we're in these days. You will deal with the maintenance (while you're at home on your off time which is equal to its weight in gold); all the scheduling, all the documentation; ever buy new drive tires? How about steer tires? What's life like when the APU goes out and you're down in Waco Texas and trying to sleep at 4:30 PM? How much does fuel cost, can you budget accordingly? Will this old truck need to be over-hauled within the next year? Will emission standards pull this old truck with 1.37 million miles off the road? PROBABLY

Every single trailer you pick up will have something wrong with it. If you ACTUALLY do a pretrip inspection. License plate light out; missing TWO mud-flaps; several marker lights out; side wall damage patched with duct tape and the list goes on. You know what? Someone mysteriously brought that pile of doggy doo doo back to the same place where it is parked...(but didn't notice it). WTH?

Most problems there are direct reflections of management who have never been behind the wheel and lived the lifestyle of a typical truck driver. Management needs to spend some time with me in that sleeper with a no idle policy. Ever swept out a trailer?

Lease? Find a nice local place and be a company driver. You'll be the same person at the end of the day and get to come home! You won't have to worry about getting sent out to New Jersey just to run out of time and find no place to park and shut down. It's really fun finding a place to park when you have 8 more minutes on your 14 and need to shut down (especially about 3:00 AM out in NYC area)...very nice.

LEASE? Ahh no.... Take it for what it's worth and drive safe...!!

 

This post should be required reading to everyone out there with stars in their eyes wanting to enter into the 21st centuries version of sharecropping. Ooops, I mean leasing.....

 

Because of KLLM your wife loves me better too.

 

There are so many LO getting away from the 9 and 10 hr wait to be loaded and unloaded from Tyson that they now throw those loads to the few company drivers that are still out there. Company driver tractors only go 61 mph but load planners still figure miles at about 68 mph which is an impossible run / time frame. What if there is an accident and 3 lanes go down to one? What if the weather is bad and you're running at 25 miles per hour? What if you break down? What if I have to deal with DOT inspection? Kllm problems are home grown; big time lack of management...pushing drivers to the point of being accident prone. Big policies with no talking on the phone even with hands free device while driving etc. Funny, dispatch blows up your phone regularly; qualcomm is beeping at me, another stupid message from somebody in safety just covering their ###. Stupid Volvo tractor beeping at 100 plus decibels because I passed several metallic street signs. THAT"S NOT A DISTRACTION? They would love nothing more than for you to lease one of their fine Freightliner tractors and overhaul the engine and transmission; and by the way, if you don't get any more loads when you're within about 6 months of paying it off (things mysteriously slowed down...hmm), we've got this wonderful "walk away lease policy" where you just give us back our truck! BYE.

Not many comments out there from drivers who have actually paid the truck off and are still on the payroll. The agenda there is to simply use you like toilet paper and once you get close to owning; the loads often disappear, you walk away. It's like that for a reason and shame on you if you fall for it.

Drive safe and triple check your mirrors before making any lane changes...!!

 

Ive posted a couple of times but hell y not one more time! I started at kllm in 2007 right before the LP kicked off. I was talked into it by a buddy who ended up getting fired for running like a crazy man. I told myself if I made it 90 days that there was no turning back. Long story short, my story is a little different cause I started training because the money was hellacious (is that a word ) lol! I was under. 07 com guaranteed maintenance so whatever happened to the truck is was guaranteed to be fixed, another reason I started training because I needed help tearing the sum beach up! and who better to help than a bunch of trainees! my truck was paid off early 7months to be exact, after new transmission, egr valve, vnt vane, 2 sets of drives with new rims, 3 sets of steers, 2 turbos, engine wiring harness, dash harness, radiator, charge air cooler and boots, 3 overheads, numerous fuel filters and air filters, I definitely came out on top of that deal as well as a few of my smarter cohorts! That's y they went to escrow only cause we were kicking their ### on the maintenance! After paid off I left and started my own company! I know several 60-70 people who paid off and either went on their own or resigned to lease back on (idiots )! It was all about how u talked to people in dispatch or the shop or safety or logs. I'm a worker and they knew and respected that. They knew all they had to do was give me a load and that was the end of it. It would be there on time and I would be ready for the next load. Looking back ....for someone with the crappy credit I have ...I couldn't finance a cheeseburger much less a $60,000 truck! Now things the way they are right before I left I would have a hard time but I told everyone that Tyson was a bad deal but nobody listens to old Shane! I made #### good money while I was there but keep in mind I trained! If you decide ...I'm an o/o ill take as much time off as I want...guess what my lil mathematicians you'll be in the hole and it sucks trying to get out of it. I was there several times and it sucks bad! On average I made as a solo @$1100-1400 a week as a trainer sometimes triple that....but again I'm a worker and a runner. The reason for leaving ....they wanted me to sign. 88 cpm contract. Now y would I do that now that I own a truck and can go after the same freight that ur hauling for $1.60-1.85 plus fact. Don't make very good business sense huh? Plus safety was looking for a reason to nail me cause I didn't exactly play by the rules all the time haha! Between that and the qc and the need for a change of scenery I left and started in flatbeds which I love the work. But I figured I would rebut the guy who says nobody was stepping forward to refute his claims. There more than a few who buried our heads and plowed forward to pay off and either move on or resign, mostly move on.

 

Good for you! Don't blame you for moving on, I think that things are designed like that for a reason. It's a shame that more companies don't want to retain honest and talented workers.

Glad I moved on too. Nice to be home daily and cutting my grass again for a change!!