My two years with Guardian Express, a chicagoland company, and a small taste of outlaw driving.

I know a lot of these types of companies show up in the bad company section, but that would be inappropriate to label this company like that. I had a bad wreck where i ran a red light and as a result an suv ran into my trailer. I was fired and not even Western Express wanted to hire me. But Guardian did. I have seen all the bad press these companies get so i did a search all over the internet and could not find anything bad about this company, they had been around six or seven years and if no one is complaining about them online, then they are worth taking a shot with.

They gave me a brand new white volvo, a 1099 job, and the owners of the company are from Serbia. They also paid me 70 cents a mile, minimum of $1,700, a week. They never once failed to pay me on time, except for one time where they made sure to call me on payday and said that the company they use to send out direct deposits was messed up and that i would be getting payed the next day, and i did. Most weeks i got the $1,700. The loads were short, mostly in the eastern timezone, it was all dryvan spot loads from brokers. In the winter time i ran a lot of pensylvania, ohio, and places around there. In the summer time is was lots of florida and the rest of the south eastern states.

Maintenance was great, they fixed the problem soon as i told them about it.They gave generous bonuses for passing inspections. I worked three weeks and got a week off after that, unpaid of course.

Almost everyday i had to split my sleeper time, it was pretty rare that i got a ten hour break, maybe once or twice a week. I was fine with that, but then all of a sudden i get a call from my dispatcher that i really liked and he told me, "You do not have to worry about the hos anymore." They switched eld service from samsara to something called log plus. Then over night things changed. All of a sudden i was getting load after load with no consideration for my hours. If i was running out of time, i just send a text and they will add hours for me, if i don't send a text, they will do it when they see i am about to run out. If i told them i was really tired then they would back off and give me a few hours of sleep. After one week of that I realized it is time to give them notice. So on my home time i applied to shaffer/crete, them being my first choice because they had a 48 state reefer operation that sounded great, meaning long runs and lots of ten hour breaks, no more splits. I was hoping to wait till the wreck was a bit older, but i could not keep driving illegal, i even had to drink coffee to keep awake, something i have only done twice in all my life before.

Amazingly, shaffer agreed to hire me that same day. So i gave guardian three weeks notice, it was in the contract, and guardian even then offered me 80 cents a mile. I turned them down, but those last three weeks i made a lot more money than i ever had before. If i had taken that offer for 80 cents a mile, i would be making $2,400- $2,800 every week. So if you can manage to drive like that, you can make good money with guardian, in the short term at least. But it was not for me. I have been with Shaffer now for about a month and a half and am happy i made the move. Still though, i do not hold resentment to Guardian, they bailed me out when i needed to work and never did any of those things you read about in the bad company section, unless you count playing fast and loose with the hos rules that is.

 

Shaffer said that over 50% of their drivers on this account gross over $102k a year, and even as the new guy i am already making near that much, so it is good to have a company where 9 out of 10 breaks is a full ten hours. Guardian always did the last moment loads that needed to be ran the second they came in. Winter time i never left the north, summer time i never touched the north, whatever was paying the most for those guys. I almost feel like i am on vacation now with Shaffer.