Swift Sucks

Just so I understand you, you had an accident, you had a moral dilemma on reporting it (but did), since it was an accident that means there was some type of damage involved, and so your mad at Swift for reporting what you did? A DAC is just like a credit report. If you pay late, its going to hit your credit report, if you abandon a truck or trailer, have an accident, its going to hit your dac report. If you are tested positive, its going to hit your dac report. If it happens, take ownership for your actions.

I am all for taking ownership for ones actions but if a police report says you are not at fault the company can still deem it as preventable and report it to DAC. Effectively ending any chance of employment with most carriers for at least a year.

There is a big difference between being denied credit to buy a T.V. and having a company throw you under the bus by the loss prevention department which is what the safety dept really is. Company's like Swift and the one I worked for would rather settle the claim instead of take the time and cost to protect a drivers livelihood.

If it was all about safety then why do OTR company's like Swift still pay by the mile and not the hour? The technology is available to accurately Gauge what a driver does during the day. I guess they don't want to pay for actual work time like some don't want to pay for even actual drive time still.

It's all about money and moving frt, driver safety and welfare is smoke and mirrors, drivers find this out after signing on with company's like Swift. Any driver out there who has been in trucking long enough can tell you how company's like swift will let you sit for days if you don't run that load plner screw-up, even after the driver tells them they are to tired to drive. Or thinks it is rational for a driver to work 100 hours a week and log 70, while the rest of society works 40- 50 yours a week and gets paid as soon as they punch a time clock. Heck, they don't even consider time at the shpr and receiver as being at work, though they will pay their office employees to go outside every hour and have a 10 min smoke break.

If company's like Swift cared one ioda about safety and drivers being happy they would send their Lobbyist to Washington to demand OTR drivers be covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act, not asking for heavier loads and longer trucks for their newbies to run so they could make more profits.

Any OTR company could treat drivers like company's who don't have a problem with turnover. They just don't want to have to pay for it through better working conditions.

My ex-girlfriend was a C/S rep and dispatcher for GTI. She did not shock me in the least when she told me what office types at that large Carrier think of the majority of truck drivers. Hobo's on wheels was one of the comments she heard. But of course in public they change their tune.

Every OTR company I have worked at and I'm sure Swift is no different segregates themselves from the drivers any way possible because they fear them. I guess when you treat drivers the way Swift and others do, that would be prudent.

 

Can you really get away with doing that? Just sign for the pallets and not count the individual pieces?

 

May I ask what company/terminal you work at?

 

Swift Transportation, Houston TX.

Wes

 

I am all for taking ownership for ones actions but if a police report says you are not at fault the company can still deem it as preventable and report it to DAC. Effectively ending any chance of employment with most carriers for at least a year.

There is a higher standard for commercial drivers. The ATA actually created the criteria for preventable and non preventable accidents. We follow it. The police follow the law, the ATA guidlines follows the commen sense...such as the roads are icy and your rig slides off the road. The police dont ticket you, but you were traveling faster then the conditions allowed. Etc..

There is a big difference between being denied credit to buy a T.V. and having a company throw you under the bus by the loss prevention department which is what the safety dept really is. Company's like Swift and the one I worked for would rather settle the claim instead of take the time and cost to protect a drivers livelihood.

We are self insured for roughly the first 5 million. No we definately dont like paying for accidents. The safety department is seperate from the claims department. Safety only cares about what happened, and why. Claims looks at all the evidence including the pictures the drivers are suppose to take and witness reports (all provided to the driver) and makes a determination. No different then a taxi cab company. If you are caught speeding, the company wont send an attorney to defend you. If you have a wreck in the taxi cab, same thing, unless of course you cause a fatality, then there will be attorneys involved.

If it was all about safety then why do OTR company's like Swift still pay by the mile and not the hour? The technology is available to accurately Gauge what a driver does during the day. I guess they don't want to pay for actual work time like some don't want to pay for even actual drive time still.

I am all for paying per load, a percentage base, hub miles etc.. pay has to be incentive based though. I think those poor Alaskan crab fishermen should get paid by the hour also, not by percentage of boat profit. Problem is the captain is only paid for what he brings in, and if the employee's have no incentive to get more crab, the captain makes no money. We are in the same boat in a sense (except of course the risk vs reward).

It's all about money and moving frt,
Your correct, we are a business. That is as accurate as saying all drivers care about is being paid and paying bills.
driver safety and welfare is smoke and mirrors, drivers find this out after signing on with company's like Swift.
Safety is priority. We will never push a driver to run when they are unsafe, but at the same time, if you are a driver that says they are to tired and unsafe all the time, and there is a history, but no valid reason, you would be talked with. If I stay up until 3am everynight and have to be to work at 6am to run a yard truck, and I told my boss I am unsafe because I am to tired, I would expect to hear something along the lines of showing up to work prepared to work.
Any driver out there who has been in trucking long enough can tell you how company's like swift will let you sit for days if you don't run that load plner screw-up, even after the driver tells them they are to tired to drive.
Maybe 10 years ago, overall that should never happen at Swift. Show me someone that tells a driver that, and I will make sure they are looking for a new job the same day.
Or thinks it is rational for a driver to work 100 hours a week and log 70, while the rest of society works 40- 50 yours a week and gets paid as soon as they punch a time clock.
If you are working 100 hours and only logging 70, I would be sending you on to another company also.
Heck, they don't even consider time at the shpr and receiver as being at work, though they will pay their office employees to go outside every hour and have a 10 min smoke break.
Its on duty not driving, after 2 hours from the appointment you get paid detention.

If company's like Swift cared one ioda about safety and drivers being happy they would send their Lobbyist to Washington to demand OTR drivers be covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act, not asking for heavier loads and longer trucks for their newbies to run so they could make more profits.
Medical interns work 80-100 hrs per week, firefighters in some location work days, not hours, I can go on with all the proffessions that work exuberent hours. Fair Labor Standards Act, the same one that covers salary pay? Unlimited work at a set daily salary? Unfortunately these are currently how these proffessions are set up, offered, and applied to by people who want employment. Overall I get the sense that you are more frustrated with the pay in the industry. I can understand that, and I also think pay should be done differently (like paying actual miles for a load, vs zip to zip code). I do believe this will come about in the near future.

My ex-girlfriend was a C/S rep and dispatcher for GTI. She did not shock me in the least when she told me what office types at that large Carrier think of the majority of truck drivers. Hobo's on wheels was one of the comments she heard. But of course in public they change their tune.
That is sad to hear. I would not invite a hobo to my house with my children, but I would have no problem with 98% of my drivers coming over.

Every OTR company I have worked at and I'm sure Swift is no different segregates themselves from the drivers any way possible because they fear them. I guess when you treat drivers the way Swift and others do, that would be prudent.

So you are making the same mistake, by assuming all this about Swift, as your ex girfriends "office types" assumes about drivers. Anyone can come to the Houston terminal and walk into any of our offices, I even have notices up saying our drivers are invited to our internal meetings if they want. All of our terminals have an open door policy.

Wes

 

Check our record, it has gotten better, and getting better everyday. We have improved it to the point that we are optional to check at scale houses. The dot system is good and bad, when your score gets bad, its hard to get off due to dot checking all the time. So you have to really make changes. (I am surprised more Swift drivers are not commenting on how many times we go after them for missing logs, an log violitions) As far as fatalities, its not that high. There are unfortunately fatalities, but if you want to base a ratio off of miles driven per day, or even truck count, we would not be as bad as you would think. To give you an idea of how we track accidents internally, we track all accidents (That is preventable and nonpreventable, driver causing it or deer running out infront of our driver) and have a goal of 10 accidents per mllion miles driven. As a company we average about 9. Less if you take out the non preventable accidents.

I do find it interesting that the 10 biggest trucking companies dont even make up 15% of all trucks out there. So when the industry is averaging 120% turnover (that includes the other 85% of the smaller trucking companies) and we are anywhere from 90-100%, why everyone assumes we are so bad now? Drivers are quitting a majority of other companies at a higher rate then us. Bad information and perspectives just creates more. Great example is even on this website, the forum to discuss your favorite trucking companies, how often does a driver step in and try to put a negative spin on the thread? Why? Its the crab in a cage syndrome. If one crab starts to get out of the cage, another crab will grab him and pull him back. That was actually the only reason why I have stayed on this website, was to respond to that on those forums. When I was seeing what the website was about, I mostly saw bad and worse when it comes to comments on a majority of the forums, no matter what the topic. There is some good information under some of the forums, but when it comes to talking about trucking comanies, it just gets negative almost no matter who the company. Tell me your favorite trucking company, I can gaurantee I can find plenty of ex drivers that are not happy with them, but for these forums to be beneficial to drivers, they need to hear both sides of any issue (Thats why I read, but dont respond to the worst trucking companies swift forum on here. I respect that they have an opinion. I am only on this thread because instead of keeping it under that one, they started a new one so I responded). This is my last response on this thread.

Wes

 

I've been looking around, and it DOES seem SwiftCo is trying to better itself, or at least a few people there are trying hard to make it better, like this VickW. I tip my hat to those people. But even if it became a super-great company tomorrow, I still wouldn't work for Swift for at least five years. That company would have to prove itself to me first after treating so many so badly for so long. Five years is a fair amount of time.....that should be about long enough.

 

I'm only giving you the truth because I'm quitting anyway.. As far as the driver managers on this site you can all blow it out your ##*. You know what I'm about to tell you is the truth so just take it.. I've been with the company for years as a driver Mentor. I've trained many many students. Some have become successful that are on dedicated/regional. Others have fell on their butts.. Not because of swift so to speak but because of it's driver managers! For a short time I had a wonderful driver manager and it was great. Hometime and miles.. What could anyone ask for?.. But now since mine left I've been getting a feel for what 80% or more of the EXPERIENCED drivers go through.. If I wouldve had this happen sooner I wouldve quit a long time ago.. Most of the driver managers will NOT care about you. It's just that simple. Most of the DM's and Planners are trainees themselves. The Owner Operators have first pick in freight. There's a lot of it but if you're OTR you'll get maybe 800 - 2800 miles a week.. 2800 sounds good.. What about the 20-30 weeks out of the year you get 800-1500 miles a week. I hope you can live off that.. DM's are trained to candy coat things. They will tell you everything "you want" to hear. I have many friends at Swift and I assure you they ALL agree with me. This is not one persons voice.

Swift is a very unorganized & a candy coated trucking company. The recruiters make $$$ by telling you what you want to hear. What I read about the DAC issues, ALL TRUE only a lot worse..They will not hesitate to put something on your DAC. It's called driver retention. This is another method of how they keep their drivers. The company wants the driver mentors to make everything sound glamorous to it's students (they don't always say this).. Listen, Plan on making $25,000 your first year if you're OTR.. IT'S ON MY STUDENTS STATS! I make money off of them for a year after they're off my truck. You can only make real money with this company if you're a trainer. Trainers often make more than owner operators. I actually love training. I do my best with each student I've had. I still talk to almost everyone of them. They usually call me if they need help with anything BEFORE they call their DM.. A majority of the mentors should not be trainers themselves. I've actually had students with more common sense than these mentors. I pick up a lot of them already into 3 weeks of training only to find out they haven't learned anything. Then I have to cram 6weeks into 3. Trust me I've heard a lot of horror stories.

You can make money and a good career with swift if the odds are in your favor..1. A good DM that knows what they're doing. 2. Your willing to run and you have your (Macro 10) stats updated every chance you get. 3. You have a decent truck... Now this is how you survive with swift if you plan on staying or becoming an employee... If you have a problem with your DM.. FIRE THEM and get a new one.. If that doesn't work transfer terminals. Some terminals are playing cleanup with upper management and the drivers suffer for it. If you have a problem with your truck. Call safety and demand a new one! If you're a trainee and you don't like your mentor or how they teach.. Call your student coordinator at your terminal and have them get you a new one ASAP. This is your career don't let swifts faults jeopardize that!

I will tell you this about swift. Swift was in very bad shape and it is slowly getting better but it's going to take a long while. Me personally, I'm not gonna wait. They're training new DM's and Planners that's why they don't know what they're doing. They're weeding out bad mentors and management.. Actually I could go on for a while but I'll leave it here and check back in a few days. I hope everyone the best and godbless