Questions for Stevens drivers!

I started at Stevens 14 years ago and still drive for another(Swift now), and I would recommend them. Very good safety oriented company, I only left them for better pay, they have raised their pay since I left in 98.

 

fairshake what was stevens like when you first worked for them?

 

They were good to me in 1997, I was a noob to trucking. Drove up to Dallas, checked into a Days Inn they used then with literally no money in my pocket. Fed me for lunch and then gave me a voucher for use in hotel restaurant for dinner while in CDL training. I received some small amount of money each week too, maybe $75.00 or something cause I would buy music cd's with it heh. My contract to pay for training was for one year of employment, I stayed 1 1/2 years then James Helwig down the road was paying about 6 cents more so went there.

Took me to get driving test on north side of Dallas after about 3 weeks of training, passed easily with all of the training they give ya its simple. Went out with trainer and got paid 350.00 per week or around that amount it went up after a few weeks I think, trainer was great had one for about 5-6 weeks which was long. We kept missing NW (Cabbage) mountain I needed so we took longer than some, but we were straight up driving like a team after about 3 weeks and having a good time, trainer would hook me up with food and we would split some unloading pay for pocket cash every once in awhile doing the ibp ones usually. Plus it showed me a bit about unloading so I would know what to look for at times when easy money was to be made or when some fail lumper was trying gouge.

After trainer we would be paired with another student as a team, dumb and dumber. Mine was ok, we only had 1 prob with truck getting stuck on a road by a truckstop running into some heavy WV fog couldnt see well. We were doing as trained, when it gets too foggy find a safe spot to pull over that isn't on the road/shoulders. We got charged for an accident just because a tow truck was called, which I think still is BS and had to split the tow bill of $550.00 (late night service calls are the bulk of the charge) After about a total of 3 months or so I passed all the training and got my own first truck a t600 and .21cpm heh. Drove everywhere and stayed out for a very long time, 3-4 months of my own choice. Did a bunch of Northeast, when you pull meat loads you will do those often, from Jersey up to Maine.

They would have me do many training/safety classes often when near Dallas. Never to this day seen a company with photos up on the wall like Stevens had, not just wreck photos, but extreme bloody carnage of past drivers who messed up or got messed up. That really sunk in. No jake brakes on any trucks back then, some trucks had cruise some didn't. I really did not like driving big mountains with them, but #### did I learn to use the brakes without smoking.

I did well after all that on my own, had one incident with pulling out of a dock and one of my doors tapping another drivers mirror breaking it. I'm kinda happy to be back at another training company now, hearing some of the things I use to hear allot at Stevens.

 

yes u will

 

Teamdriver2 who do you pull for?

 

stevens transport

 

Teamdriver2,

Being that you live in MI how often do you get home driving for Stevens? What kind of miles are you getting?

 

i live in nc now but when we wanted to go to mi, we or i when i was solo went no problems getting home to mi or nc.

 

TD2 I know that stevens delivers to the meijer wharehouse in MI. What other areas does stevens deliver to in MI? BTW thanks for the reply.