Swift Transportation Company, Inc. - Phoenix, Az.

I was ignorant and let Swift talk me into ruining my career. The woman in charge of orientation told us that they haev18,000 trucks and at least 1 driver killed each week. Driver fault or company training mistake ?
I talked to quite a few people while I was there and heard not one good story. Mentor nightmares and electrical problems.

 

You went to Swift, found out what that outfit is all about, and then came here. You should have done it in reverse order. You would have thought thrice about going there in the first place, and may not have gone.

We pretty much know what SwiftQuit is all about here. Sorry you got burned, man, but it's no surprise. Welcome to the club. I tip my hat to a fellow ex-SwiftQuit driver.

 

Well I don't think it is every driver but many of us did not get much training or as it seems in hindsight, needed it.

I went to a school when they first started requiring formalized training to be a truck driver. I drove maybe 20hrs out of the 8 weeks the school lasted. It was just a money maker for the school and not much else. My first company (KLLM) drove nine speed cabovers, had slip seating, and my training consisted of a trainer throwing me the keys and telling me where the load pu and where it was going. We ran teams from day one 7000 miles per week coast to coast runs and you either made it or they sent you home on the gray dog.

I can honestly say that I learned much about driving a truck and running a load on my own. In those days you sank or swam they did not provide you with a inner-tube till you learned. Some drivers don't need to be handheld for months to do the job. Don't be jealous of that. Everybody is different no matter what the companies or the feds say.

 

Seeing is believing, and anyone loading at Quaker in Tracy, Ca would have cause to make the statement you are upset about. Even if it is not all the drivers the percentages are greater at a company like Swift just because of the number of drivers they have to keep pumping through the mill.

I do not criticize any drivers as a whole trying to make a living when I am on the road. I treat each driver separately and treat them with the same respect as anyone else regardless of what company they work for. But Swift has built a reputation that is well deserved in many cases and would have to totally retool to change it IMO. I have had my mirror ripped off in a rest area and a crease put down the side of my trailer on a fuel Island by a swift driver but I will still continue to treat the drivers individually but the company as a whole stinks so bad no amount of perfume or disinfectant will change that.

 

It has nothing to do with us not ever being green. All of us started out green at one point. I have nothing against swift drivers in general. The problem I have is all the bone head things that I see them do on a day to day basis.. I am not talking about newbie mistakes. I am talking about things that would happen if you took a 10 year old kid and said here is the keys to this truck. Deliver this load on the far coast and bring it back. That is the kind of mistakes I see them make. Some have that age mentality for judgement calls.

When a swift driver pulls out of a fuel island and the 1st 4 foot of his trailer tears off the hood and fender of the truck beside him and he attempts to drag the rest of the 49 feet of trailer over top of the demolished truck I think someone like this should not even be in a car lone enough a big truck. What kind of a newbie mistake is that??? You could put a baboon behind the wheel and some could negotaite the truck better than some of the bone head moves I have seen out there.

 

Some of these comments will leave a mark.

Sad thing is they are true when it comes to Swift, JB and a few others.

 

This is but a small excerpt of a case Swift lost on appeal for wrongful termination. The highlighted part is what any driver working for Swift could endure should they have a problem with this company.

Swift does not respect their drivers and trolls for replacements from the ranks of the desperate.

Don't become one of their victims. There are thousands of company's better then this one which is the reason they will hire drivers ,others will not.

 

I was parked next to a fellow Swift driver in Pennsylvania someplace back in 95 and saw that kind of move. It was the old brick complex that made Dana (?) axles for pickups. The lady pulled out from the dock with one door swinging free. What an idiot. Sure enough, the door swung back nearly perpendicular to the box just as she got to my front fender. It caught on my fender mirror and ripped it off, taking a huge chunk of fiberglass with it. It was an in-house DACcident, and she stayed on. I guess it would have taken someone walking between the rigs getting smacked to get her fired.

 

I was reading a much earlier post in this thread, so excuse the disparity - but - I live and drive/work in Phoenix. I see Swift trucks everywhere - they have a huge yard in west Phoenix - I think EVERY trucking company has a big yard in west Phoenix. I've been cut off by Swift drivers so often, when I see them I get into a lane that they won't be coming into when I pass them so I know I won't be standing on the brake pedal in attempt to shut down the truck in time to run into their #$$ end.

I don't know WHO is training these drivers, but I see all kinds of CRAP going on, on Phoenix freeways with a LOT of these drivers. Then, on some of the city "surface" streets, you see these Swift trucks with signs on them that say "student drivers". I don't get ANYWHERE near them. I will wait until they either turn off the road to get by them or until there are 3 lanes of travel so there is at least 1 lane between their truck and mine.

I couldn't possibly say that ALL Swift drivers are that bad, but I have seen too much of the nonsense out there, and have been exposed to it on too many occasions. I am not trying to bash the newbies - the drivers that are being pumped through their system like cows going to the slaughterhouse. How many times have I read about a Swift truck involved in some horrific accident somewhere?

I'm a long way out of the loop in driver training, how long will typical driver spend in a driver training school? Is there some difference in time spent in the "typical" school versus Swift school? Why does Swift training seem to be so unbelievably inferior?

 

Swift allows inexperienced drivers to be trainers. I think if you have 6 months' driving experience, they will allow you to train. Believe it. When I had 6 months' experience, there was still books of knowledge I hadn't yet acquired. One with only 6 months is too green to be a trainer. Let him drive for about 2 1/2 years more and then allow him to join the training ranks.

And it gets better. Many of these inexperienced "trainers" (such as they are) have in turn been trained by inexperienced "trainers", who were in turn trained by inexperienced "trainers", who were in turn trained by.....you get the idea. It should be no surprise that you are seeing what you are seeing on the freeways of Phoenix. You reap what you sow when it comes to companies and training.

Any company that skimps on training as much as SwiftQuit is a company green drivers need to avoid. If they don't care any more about your future than that, well....you decide what that means.