Stevens Transport

Overall, how has your experience been the past three months? Do you have an apu in your truck?

 

It has been pretty good, but I had the day from hell today. Was planning on putting in about 550 miles, got 450 instead. My truck seems to have a stuck thermostat, it tried to shut the truck down. I made it into a Pilot to let it cool off, then babied it into Lexington to the Kw dealer, getting pulled over for a level 3 on the way. Then I find out they won't let me park there overnight. While trying to find a close truck stop I ended up on a dark 2 lane road in pouring rain. Looking in the mirror I see flashing lights! I had no place to pull over, so I continue on until I find a right turn lane for a residential area and pull in there. Next thing I know this cop is standing outside my window screaming at me. He told me if he had time he would put me in jail. Don't I know that he is trying to get around me? (I thought he was pulling me over). Just stop next time.(Blocking traffic). I should know how to drive better than that. He also said something about his siren which I couldn't hear from 75 feet behind me what with the road noise, rain having the windows rolled up, engine noise etc. I did not even have a radio on. All I could do is apologise. Then I had to find a place to turn around, find a spot to park, contact the driver who is coming to get my load. Then I can go to sleep, get up in the am and go back to the dealer and see how much more of my week can get wasted.

 

FozzyBear,

I have been reading your posting and it has been informative. Now that you are in your 90 grad, are you making good money and miles? I am very sorry to hear about your truck and the situation with the cop, but it will be a better day tomorrow. How is your home time? My husband just started with Stevens and hope he goes well for him too.

 

Yes. Frozzybear I'm too sorry to hear about your problems with the cop. It's not your fault though. A cop does not understand what it's like to drive an 18 wheeler. I'm hoping you could give me some insite, as to what it's like driving for Stevens? I was thinking about driving for Stevens mainly because I never hear anything negative about their miles or equipment. Could you tell me what are the average length of trips on Stevens hauls? How many miles per week do their driver average? How is their equipment? Is it as good as it sound compared to other trucks on the road? And lastly do the have APU's and what is the idle policy for truck with APU's vs. no APU's. Do the lllow microwaves, toaster ovens ect. on there trucks or inverters to run them. I thank you in advance for responding to my post. And keep your head up out there. There will always be better days ahead.

P.S. I will always be willing to talk to you through post to see how's your day going. If you need someone to talk too. I know at times it's rough out there.

 

Well, I am considering going back to the company side at this point as I made way more money there. Mostly this is due to the truck breaking down, and a few loads with long wait times. Unfortunately I cannot make my house payment on $69.00 a week.
Most of what I have been running are 600-800 miles, 2 days. The National average is 1950-2150. If you can hustle the service team and keep yourself endeared to them you can get a lot of repower miles that can get you up in the 2700-3000 range. On the company side I was running about 2200 a week.
Once you hit grad fleet they will put you in the oldest POS they have available to run in. Probably no APU. You can add an inverter and run just about anything you want but if you need a jump because of it they may bill you for it. All the new trucks coming in have APU's and they are selling off the older ones. They don't expect you to idle at all if you have an APU, but they do have a threshold, I just don't know what it is. Non APU trucks it's 30%.

 

Fozzy what does 2200 miles a week translate to (company driver side) as a Gross/Net paycheck??? I've heard quite a few differences, would like to hear from an actual newer Stevens driver since that's where I'll be next week.

Also, the standard Stevens pitch is that they don't run old equipment, they say the average age of the fleet is 17 months and it sounds like they don't keep anything past 3 or 4 years. Have you found this to be true?

Plz PM me if you don't feel like posting paycheck info but it really should be fairly standard for new drivers, I know they start at .26 right? I just don't know how much they take out or how much you can deduct to keep your paychecks decent.

 

Thanks FozzyBear. So, what's going on with you now? Are things looking better since your last incident? I hope so. Do you get to the west coast alot? What part of the contry to you spend most of your time in? So what I was told about the average age of ther trucks being 16-18 months old must not be true. Drivers must really dog their truck if it is true. Have you talked with drivers who you might think is a better company? If so who are they? I was thinking about Stevens, Transam, Central, FFE, or SRT. I really appreciate your advice. Thanks alot . . .

 

2200 x .26 - 25% taxes plus whatever deductions are coming out every Wednesday. On the company side they have you scan in your trips as you complete them, so if the gross is less than $350.00 they don't take Federal taxes out. You can do the math above, deductions are different for everybody, so I can't tell you what yours will be. As to the age of equipment, I just got out of a 2005 KW T2000. But remember, they are talking about average age. If you have a dollar today, and a hundred tomorrow, you have an average of fifty a day.

 

The life of a trucker.... plans change. You have a t660 right? I hope the dealer can change out a thermostat in a few hours.

Sounds like the cop was having a bad day too. If he was really trying to get around you, he would not have wasted time stopping to yell at you. At least you are in your truck, and not sitting with bubba

 

What can you tell me about FFE?