Need Help - Stuck with very bad company

I'd like to lay some preliminary info out here before I get to the meat and potato's of this post.

I've driven commercially for 7 years back in the 90's. Got out of truck and went into a different career path. Found myself out of work and needing to pay bills so I decided to fall back on my CDL. Discovered so much had changed, I couldnt find any work because I had no recent experience. Gone are the days of having a clean record, road test and a handshake.

So I answer an ad,.. this guy makes all kinds of promises. Says 4 - 6 weeks with trainer. Then home for 5 days and will get bumped from training pay to regular pay when I get my truck. Then have me home every 2 - 3 weeks.

Now here I am, was out with a trainer for 8 weeks. Finally have my own truck for almost a month now. I have not seen my wife or my kids in almost 12 weeks. I am forced to take over weight loads. We do paper logs and I am asked to "Re-write History" as it was put to me.

The owner of this company is a hot head. I am very afraid of him. He will yell and become very belligerent towards me sometimes for no reason at all,.. often when someone else has done something and I happen to be there for him to yell at.

He hires guys like me so he can pay very little money and get away with forcing us to do things that seasoned professional drivers would never do. I want out. I signed a 1 yr contract. The only consequence is that I lose my last paycheck. I am ready to let him keep it. How ever I am terrified that if I quit he will write up very negative things in my DAC report. I have been here 3 months and have not done anything. No damages and have been inspected by DOT twice already and no problems came out. I do what I am asked to do because I need the time behind the wheel in order to get into a better company. But I cant take this anymore. I have read horror stories, and have been told by other drivers here that if I tell him I want to quit he will tell me to stop where I am at so he can "Rescue" his truck. He will write me up for abandoning his truck. I dont know how to prevent this.

Someone please help me. I am getting burned out. I need some home time. I miss my wife and kids. I need a better company to work for.

Before you ask,.. until I am free and clear I cant reveal who this company is for fear of the repercussions that will come to me if I do. I want to stay in trucking. I really enjoy what I do. But I would like to see my family at least once a month and make enough money to pay my bills. I will never sign a contract like this again. Guys like this take advantage of people like me who need work. I just need an out.

 

My wife told me to start recording phone conversations and I have been documenting violations for almost 3 weeks now. My only hesitation there is that there are 12 other guys here who need their job as much as I do. They are ALL in the same boat I am in. They all have something, whether it be a bad DAC report, accidents, lack of experience,.. they all have something that prevents them from going somewhere else. If I go to DOT and they shut him down, then they lose their jobs. I dont want to be the cause of all that. I fear in the end that my be my only course of action in order to save my record.

I will go to walmart today and buy a voice recorder and start recording him and everything they make me do. I've saved all of my over weight scale tickets. I was even told to blow by the Utah Port of Entry when I was over weight because they have no chase cars there. Instead I deviated from my route and took an alternate course to avoid the scale house,.. they think I just drove by it.

I feel like I am caught between a rock and a hard place. I just want to drive for a 'legitimate' company. I know we all fudge logs. But this guy gets PO'd if you dont do at least 700 miles a day. 800 even better as long as I push everything back around the fuel stops and make it look legit. I hate it here. I hate myself for getting caught up in this. I am open to any and all suggestions.

 

He's already been audited several times. Thats why we are personally shown how to push back our logs and count miles to make the books look legit. He has a full time 'Log Nazi' to make sure any audits dont hurt his company.

His FMCA safety record shows so many fatigued driving log violations, its almost laughable. He's already had drivers wreck his trucks. None have happened during my time here. But its all on record plus he yells at us that his insurance is ready to drop him if we keep getting violations when getting inspected or if anyone wrecks another truck, says he will be out of business.

I'm just trying to keep my record clean and get enough time behind the wheel so I can use him as a stone to jump into a better company. Things have gotten to the point where I fear I may end up wrecking the next truck. I find myself so tired after driving 12 hours, waiting 2 hours to lump my own load, spend another 2 hours unloading, then get maybe 4 - 6 hours of sleep only do to another 12+ hours behind the wheel.

I am living a trucking horror story. I wish it was as easy as getting out and walking away. I have a family to think about. I was unemployed for over a yr before this. I dont want to go back to that again. The little money I do make is better than no money at all.