my USXpress experience

Our experience started Feb. 18... due to a trucking closure, my husband and I started looking at different trucking companies to work with.

After going thru a couple day phone process, we were asked to drive to chicago, and go thru orientation, which we did. The process was long and tediest, but we finally got thru it with flying colors. The we were issued a 2007 volvo, with about 350,000 miles on it.. the outside appearance was great, a few bangs, but over-all, the truck looked good.

The first 2 weeks, we ran miles, not as many that we were told, but ran with a help of a planner. this is when it all started. the truck in the next 4 weeks, was broke down every week. One break down could have killed us or killed someone else. We found out that this truck had NO PARKING BREAKS ON THE TRACTOR.

We're hooking up to a trailer in a dock, that was partially loaded.. we backed under the trailer, hooked up the lines, and noticed that a chalk was semi under the rear tire, not touching the tire, so we kicked it out of the way.

We got back into the truck and was waiting for the paper work to be completed. An over-anxious forklift driver, hit the back of the trailer extra hard, and all we felt was the truck thrust forward. We jumped out of the truck, and noticed the forklift partly in the trailer, and partly on the dock. We backed up the truck to the dock again, and the trailer was finished being loaded. NO ONE WAS HURT!! a little shaken up, we all were, but there was no damages.

The next day, as this innodent happened at 11pm, we took the truck to the volvo dealer, and was told that this truck should never have left the terminal.. There were no parking brakes at all.. calipers, slack adjustors, springs, all had to be replaced. the truck was down for a week until all the parts could be ordered in and fixed.

We told USX that we wanted another truck, and they said they would see what they could do. We were sent on another trip, where again, this truck broke down, and cost us 2 days away from home. this time, alternator, and air conditioning compressor. the next week, a airconditioning modilator went out, cost us another day..

Finally, we told this co. either get us a new truck, or we were quitting. They gave us a new truck, we ran 7000 miles this last week, and were requesting home time. When we went to our home terminal, we were told, due to "OUR ACCIDENT OF 3 WEEKS AGO", our services were no longer needed. To clean out our truck, and leave the property.

This "accident" was NO FAULT OF OURS!! My husband has a 9 year, over a million mile, accident-free record, and I have a 6 year accident free. Now because of this company, we have a negative report on our DAC.

If anyone has any suggestions to help us remove this report from our dac, please feel free to let us know. and PLEASE stay away from this company... they have no idea how to treat their drivers!

 

yea.... we know that now..

 

the brakes, to roll down the road, worked or seemed to work fine... it was the parking brakes that were faulty. And due to no johnson bar in the truck, how were we to know. We do and did a complete pretrip, but with internal parts being broke, we just didn't know.

 

by looking at these items on a pretrip... how is one to know if they are working or not. upon inspection of the chambers, hoses, adjustors, drums and shoes... everything looked good... it wasn't until the tractor was put under a load, that it gave way. Even a mechanic from the volvo dealer said that there was no way this truck should have ever been out on the road. and that a layman truck driver wouldn't know anything was wrong until something like this happened. Drivers are not responsible for the internal workings of the brake system.. that's why were drivers, and not mechanics. the pretrip includes "inspection", but upon inspecting the brake system, it seem'd to all be in working order.