Need advice

Sounds like you have it figured out. Not seeing a question in there. Or maybe I'm not understanding the problem.

 

I'm with FFE and haven't had a problem with them.

 

FFE is line haul. Terminal to Terminal for OTR. Trailers are already loaded, hook and drop. Teams run about 5000 miles a week. They don't really sit. If you do sit they pay detention pay. If you happen to get to a yard that doesn't have a load, then you help out local (Paid hourly) if you want. We do, but I have known drivers that refuse and it wasn't a big deal. DM's are pretty good. We stay out 6 weeks. No problem getting home. (2 week notice) Most terminals are on the outskirts of the city and off the freeway. Easy in and out.

 

We were a team with FFE and after approval from a number of company heads within the structure of FFE I was permitted to train my spouse when she got her CDL after driving school. Transported her to Lancaster for Orientation and was told we have 12 weeks to make her able to pass a test that will decide if she will be either a team driver with me, a solo driver or simply shown the door (Along with me fired as a trainer and going solo) Obviously we were successful.

In our time during 2000 and 2001, we were a sort of a national fire truck capturing loads off those who are running late with it. And the loads have to be delivered within a deadline or the account will be at risk. We did not earn the miles potential that year and chose to move to another company that leases with McKesson in Memphis to haul very high dollar loads of medicine. And all of the existing trouble with sitting, losing time etc has vanished with this employer. We roll medicine, narcotics etc to say Detroit, deliver and reload with cardboard bales and back to Memphis asap. And there will be a trailer waiting for us.

Drop and hook is the very best of everything in trucking particularly for a team. We would have loaded in LA Ca. Going to Avenel NJ and drop hook and back to LA Ca in 6 days or so. Rest up a day and do it again the next week. Close to 5500 or more miles. 0.75 to the truck then. Money ceased to have any real meaning, overflowing our bank account. And there were times we were given bad loads that took way too much lost time to take care of and deliver. and no miles for the work week. Canada was the one thing we did alot of. It was a real benefit to be able to run Canada in those days. If you had a history here in the USA doing bad things you cannot go to Canada, they would just turn you around at the border. (After 9-11 it's REALLY tightened up.

FFE is still running trucks, however due to changes in the past decade or so, we don't see too many FFE trucks in our neck of the woods like we used to.

Would we choose FFE as a employer again? no. When I ran for McKesson with those high dollar freight, that was my calling. It will be very hard to do anything else in trucking that is just say potato chips to a walmart DC in Waco from Hanover or whatever. There is no motivation to do those loads anymore.

 

I'd go with FFE. no question about it.

 

off topic, how is FFE for solo? that terminal to terminal sounds good...

 

Same as teams as in layover, detention pay, breakdown, helping out local terminals. The solo drivers I know get around 2500+ miles a week. They let you idle your truck. No slip seating. Some trucks have inverters already in them, if yours doesn't have one they do allow it to be installed in company trucks.