My Experience With KLLM

Ok thanks the only reason that I was looking at regional at all was so that I could be home a little more. I dont see me going o/o anytime soon with anyone because of the high payments and the low miles that everyone seems to be getting these days. I just want a good company to go to work for and that at the end of the day still knows me as my name and not another truck or number.

 

RE SE regional fleet. One of the big black holes in SE is Florida. There is a real imbalance of freight originating in Florida, with more freight going into Florida then coming back out. When you work on percentage(a lot of the SE fleet does) if you have to dead head out or a longer distance this can have an effect.
What makes it worse is that as a result of this northbound freight rates are lower.

 

I am still so confused as to where to go. I like the sound of Southeast regional but I am not sure. I know that I am not going to jump into anything right now as I am coming out of a bad situation and dont want to jump into another bad situation. I am so new to trucking and dont have alot of winter experence and like the idea of this area, but then the percentage thing really scares me. So do they pay us for dead head miles or do they just write those off and we dont get anything at all? Thanks for all the help that anyone can give me to help me make my dicision on where to go.

 

No deadhead pay just a percentage of loads. On occasion they will pay d/h to percentage driverers BUT it is EXTREMELY rare. We do have a mix of frieight.
Southeast region for KLLM is based out of Atlanta area with the area being primarily Va to Fl w to the Mississippi river. North to Ky. Some regional runs do go as far north as Harrisburg, Pa.
The main customer for the regional fleets is a package salad company that we have a very very long relationship with. I am told the Florida loads pay much better to compensate for the lower paying northbound freight. I have always been on mileage though.

 

I haven't read the whole discussion but it started some time ago. I and others at school got a prehire letter from Kllm and I would like to know what the mileage is like now for OTR and they are saying they will pay the balance of school off at the end of 1 year of service. Are they slip seat and do they run the NW? I also have prehires from Stevens and Covenant but Covenant wants to run teams and I'm wanting to solo.

 

Stevens treats their drivers like dogs....

I am upgrading at KLLM to my own truck in a week.

KLLM has NO slip seat trucks...
avg lease purchase solo drivers I have talked to are getting 2700-3200 miles per week. I havent talked to many company drivers but the one I did talk to said he is averaging about 2900 per week.
they do run NW but no NYC, no Canada.

I personally would choose KLLM over Covenant and Stevens without hesitation.

 

This is simply not true. I've been here a year now and you will not even come close to averaging 2900 miles a week, more like 2200-2300....AVERAGE.

 

The 2200-2400 is what they state on their web site and that seems they are honest about it where as Stevens says 3000 which I know is just not true. They also say they pay off the balance of your school loan after a year while giving you around $150 a month towards it durning the first year. Is there some catch to the pay off like signing a year or two contract at the year? What's the story on their equipment and can you run reefers?

 

did you not see where I said "the one" I talked to...... I didnt imply this was an average...

 

I was not commenting on you whatsoever Romans. I was commenting on the words of the person you talked to. This is probably not only not average, it's probably not true of that ONE driver's miles. Many, many drivers overstate the average miles they drive. Instead they have a few better weeks now and then and think their average is higher than what it is.

It is very difficult to make 2900 miles a week with a reefer which is 95%+ live load/unloads and 61 mph truck. I know you can come a little closer with lease trucks that are limited to 70 mph, but still, the tiny amount of drop and hooks eats up the time you could be running plus they just don't often dispatch that amount of miles.

I was very optimistic when I started driving and now I know the reality. One of the things is, you really shouldn't have to drive 3500 miles a week to make a decent living.