My journey with Swift begins tomorrow!

I believe it was a combination of the "comfort zones", higher likelihood of getting home when you want to, and that flatbed drivers don't sit as often as van drivers do and have shorter hauls. Our classroom instructor went flatbed for the whole time he was at swift, so we received a lot more knowledge and info about flatbed than we did van. He was careful to preface everything he said about van with "I'm not 100% sure because I ran flatbed."

As far as team driving/mentoring is concerned, here's how it works: If you have no experience whatsoever or you came fresh out of the academy, Swift requires you to have 240 hours behind the wheel with a mentor. The first 50 of those hours you drive with the mentor in the passenger seat - your log sheets have to match up, he can't be in the sleeper berth while you're driving, he has to be on duty.

Afterwards, for the remaining 190 hours, you and your mentor are able to run as a team and are treated as such. You run this way until the end of your 240 hours. Then you can do whatever you want once you go back and take your final road test.

Does that clarify it for you? Because if you're thinking of doing anything else for that 240 hours, you won't be working at Swift, pure and simple.

 

I didn't think there was any deliberate misinformation. I just think more people went with flatbed because they recieved more information about it over van in general.

When I mean comfort zone, he was stating that comfort zones were better adhered too because it makes no sense to send Phoenix drivers east of Chicago because then it overlaps with flatbedders based out of Gary and takes loads away from them. Can't remember if those zones were flatbed specific.