Transam trucking-no good

Bill has been driving for 2 years now, and leaving TransAm was the biggest mistake he made in his driving career. If he had stayed there, he would have 2 years with one company, which looks real good on a DAC, instead of bouncing around to 4 different ones, all of which sucked exponentially worse than the last. Say what you want about TA, but you can do a LOT worse. Trust me, we did. As far as miles go, try finding a company that pays ACTUAL miles, not HHG. His last company was off by almost 100 miles each and every trip. Weekend dispatch is notoriously bad almost everywhere. I do agree that their lease program is geared to make THEM rich, not the driver; but as a company driver, in my opinion they take pretty decent care of you. That doesn't mean they don't have issues-but it is hard to find a company that doesn't.

 

-nothing wrong with getting some bottom-feeder experience early in your career. Many truckers can't afford that lifestyle though and don't want to put their DOT record on the line.

-no way will they drive for outfits like Trans-Am. High Risk-Little Reward. =Bottom Feeder trucking. I will let the rat tails and angler fish take those jobs (bottom-feeders)

 

As far as bottom feeders go, at least at the time we were there, I think they were nowhere near as bad as the Werners, CRE's, Swift's, etc... of the world. Don't really miss dodging tornadoes in the springtime though

 

I don't think paid "hub miles" even exists in OTR, and if it does somewhere - not for long.

Just not possible from a business perspective, since any driver could give themselves a "raise" by taking the scenic route.

 

Years ago I workeed with an outfit that paid hub miles.
We did alot of multi stop loads.
They knew the apx. miles and they did check from time to time, but never really questioned our miles.

But I got real tired of having to list every stop I did.
But hey they paid, plus drop charges.

Even today with the sofware that the compaines have they can do a point to point rteing. and get your miles correct.

 

That's the thing, they do have the ability to track and pay fair miles to drivers - If they choose to.

Whatever the excuse, like "we pay what the shipper pays in miles" - all well in good.

But they sure like to advertise 34 -40 cpm, but when compared to "real world" miles - it's usually about 5-6 cpm less than advertised.

And knowing that - the companies still in the "2*" cpm range look even more like a joke

This way they can give the "Perception" of increasing driver rates - but it's just creative math.

Rand Mcnally shortest routes, "Zip to Zip", - all BS intended to gradually cut driver wages overall - without actually having to "own up" to pay cuts, or the reality of how pitiful their pay rates really are.

 

That's the truth.

I remember quite a while back when USXpress sent out a warning that they were going to start charging drivers who went out of route something like a dollar per mile to "pay for the expense" of running the truck those unauthorized miles.

Our question was, "if you can track me well enough to know that I went 50 miles out of route, why can't you track me well enough to pay me the miles I actually drove when I followed your route exactly?"

It was nothing for us to have trip after trip that paid 10 to 15% fewer miles than we drove on the route they told us to take, and when you're talking about team loads of 2,000 miles that's a lot of money you lose every week... not that we had many 2,000 mile trips the last six months or so.

 

What other business in this country expects people to work for free and why do the drivers work for free each day they drive?

What will it take for drivers to stand up for their rights and not accept the "Well this is Normal or Acceptable" line of bullcrap?

 

There is no chance of "truer" miles being paid until the number of loads far exceeds the number of truck available. Even when that occurs, that is when the mega carriers step in and low ball in order to keep their huge fleets busy.