US Xpress, Inc. - Chattanooga, Tn.

I have been with this company for 7 years now, my entire driving career, all accident free. I can only think of one reason to stay with this company, I love their trucks. But moreso the transmissions. I have officially been converted to driving only automatic trucks.

Anyrate, I will go into what I can about the company..

First, their training group isnt entirely bad. They currently have a program where the trainer does no driving at all except to show the student how to do this or that. They are not supposed to drive for long periods unless they are running out of hours to get the load there. Other than that, the trainer is to sit in the jump seat. But their chump change pay rate for the students suck. I dont like the fact that I can not choose my student either. If a trainer feels racial tension towards a certain race or creed or sex, then how good of a training is that student really going to get. They tried to get me to train 3 mexican speaking, with little to no english, students in a row, and I flat out refused. This got me banned from the training program. There company school got closed down by the state of OHIO last year because the werent following some simple state laws. Kinda surprising for a ATA PRIMARY supporting company!

Speaking of the ATA, the Companys co-founder/co-ceo, Pat Quinn, is the lead chairman for the ATA, American Trucking Assoc., or what I affectionatly call, against truckers assoc. So in other words, its only about the money, and they probly could care less about the driver as long as there is some monkey in the seat behind the wheel.

This company has gotten entirely to big for its own good. They have recently aquired Total Transport (MS), Arnold Transport, Abilene Transport, Carpet Max, Paragon Leasing, Rosedale, large percentages of many other companys, and are working on a large scale buy out of a HUGE company. So you can see why the drivers mean nothing to the company..

They do offer these nice company picnics, where the bring in truck stop reps, and start handing out free stuff. But this is only a internal recruiting measure. All they are trying to do is recruit there solos into teaming up with someone, and using high pressure sales tactics to do this. I dont know about y'all, but I live in a low pressure world, living a low pressure life, and these people had me about to hurt someone...

They dont really take care of their equipment. They have this company moto right now called "Pride in your ride". But when you go to the equipment coordinators office, get your keys, and go out to your truck, its more than likely going to either have been recently wrecked, and only halfway put back together, or not at all. My hood on my 04 Volvo 780 is half PINK from a accident it had right befor I got it. They cant even pay for quality repair work. If you do decide to come and work for them, bring a digital camera, and take pictures of all the damage on the truck with a date stamp in the picture, get them printed out, and signed off on by someone at the company. They have this nasty habbit of accusing the new driver of old damage when they turn in the truck. My first truck with this company had no heat, its in the middle of January, and I am freezing my rear off. I had to gripe and complain forever and a day to try to get it fixed. They wanted me to take it to all the diferent shops, that were all indoors and heated. So the heat worked for them. After the seventh shop, I sent a msg to the breakdown dept telling them I still have no heat, there reply, and I quote here "quit your bi&%^ng and drive the truck. There is nothing wrong with it". I didnt take kindly to this, and made a bee line for a weigh station. A nice 12000 dollar ticket later, I was no longer running the north, and running the Texas corridors, with breakdown asking me every day if I needed money for a hotel. They havent screwed with me since on a break down issue.

A 65 MPH governer is the company standard now unless you have 4 years with the company, and even then its only bumped up to 67. Oh no, think I am going to get a 2 mph nosebleed!! I dont understand the governors on trucks. Its a PROVEN fact that split speed limits are in fact DANGEROUS!, and when you mandate a company, and working on a national, split speed limit, its no wonder these "slow" companys have the highest rates of accidents. Run unders from drivng to slow, and ditch walkers from falling asleep at the wheel cause you cant even do the speed limit in 74% of the country.

The options that come with the trucks are lacking at best. They have replaced the fender mirrors with a camera system, that breaks every other week. But for some reason that 30 mirror costs them more than the 865 dollar (actual number) camera system that breaks routinely and costs the same amount to fix every time it does. The trucks dont even have a trollie valve, and yet they require to hook up to a trailer like your truck does have one when going thru training and being upgraded, which makes no sense to me. They recently started getting trucks that had power passenger side windows, and I think if they had a choice, it wouldnt even have that cause they cost money or some such junk. I love the collision avoidance system... Oh wait they are taking those out cause some drivers were complaining. Well no duh they were complaining. Truckers inherently dont like technology. They are still getting used to the IDEA of a automatic transmissions!! No fridges, no cd players (we are in the 21st century right?), no inverters, no battery packs, no APU's. But if you, the driver, want something installed like that, it better be the kind they like or they wont install it. But I do like the 5th wheel slide, and release buttons. That makes like a tad bit easier, and less greasier.

At the terminals you can count on not being treated with any respect, and any dropped trailer you pick up is going to have new damage it needs fixed cause the yard jockeys are pretty much morons. There drivers cant even show any respect. Try waving at one while driving down the road, if you get one to wave back, you have found the 1 in 122 drivers that actually wave back. If you get one to talk to you on the radio, you have found the 1 in aprox 1000 that will talk back. Can you see how fed up I am with these guys? I actually counted that?

In closing, I am leaving this company. Going somewhere else, any where else, but this hell hole.

Edit: Wow that was alot of complaing and typing LOL..
Edit2: added short story above.

 

Hey you ex-USExpress drivers. Can you tell me what happened to the Salt Lake terminal on 21st South by the post office? That place used to be bristling with bobtails (many that were empty cleaned-outs, no doubt), but these days it's a ghost terminal.

Did they move to a new location or close down the Salt Lake operations altogether? Not that I care, mind you. I'm just curious. A significant portion of the terminal, which used to be PST's terminal before going belly up, has been razed to the ground.

 

That just closed it. Probly sold it to some airport parking company, but thats just speculation.

 

I was working as a local driver out of Kent Wa for USX when the load planner who I worked for, told me they were shutting down the SLC operation. They had been trying to relocate the term but descided there was no profit in having essentially a drop yard for teams who did'nt want to chain in the winter to drive into CA and.

These teams would drop a load on friday, put their PTA out to monday and then cry about a Hush load going to AZ that was a D&H, but was not 2000mls long. I was bobtailed once from Spokane WA to Kent Wa to p/u a load going to PA becuase the 2 teams at the yard did not want it becuase it had 3 drops. Though I was regional I ran that load to Pittsburg and droped it for a local and was reload back to Fresno Ca the same day. I worked there for 6.5 years and NEVER got under 2500 miles for the week. Usually did between 2800 and 3200 yet I talked to driver after driver who said they were getting no miles blah blah. Drivers, WHINERS don't get miles, they get starved out. And that company had more lazy whining people then I have ever seen.

And I loved it becuase it ment more miles and more money for me. Drivers ##### more now, then when I was driving a 57mph FRTLNR Cabover with a coffin bunk doing team runs for .12 a mile. Come to work or go home.

 

Yeah, I know what you mean, BigBlue. I've been the "victim" of an owner-operator's shenanigans a time or two. Unlike you, I got the shaft on these runs. I can't believe somebody would refuse a load with only three drops, assuming the load didn't go into a big city. Yeap, they were whiners. But you benefitted nicely, sounds like.

USX is going to rearrange its operations now because of this terminal closure. Imagine all the costs involved in doing that, plus razing the terminal in Salt Lake.

 

I too live close to US Xpress and drove for them 3 years in the new carpet fleet. At first times were good and I actually enjoyed it. My Uncle was on vacation in Ft Collins Colorado and had a massive heart attack and US actually found me a load from St Louis to there right away and gave me 3 days off. I picked up at the Bud plant there headed for Sacramento Cali and when i got to Reno I recieved another message stating my sister had died,again they came thru and even offered to fly me home but I had my dog with me so they got me a load straight back to Atlanta. So far so good. but then while at home(after being out 3 weeks) the second day back I got a call stating my load was ready. I said I wasnt ready to drive and to check on my reason for being home. Got that problem solved but my driver manager had it out for me after that. When I started back out I picked up in Atlanta on friday at a place that was closed until Monday but the pickup was ok as it was pre-loaded headed for Dallas....here we go....got to the Petro and it was way overweight and nothing I could do about it. They wouldnt let me take it back and pick up another and i had to sit in Atlanta under a load until Monday the delivery was scheduled for Monday. By the time they got the load right I headed to Dallas that evening. Then onto Cali again. On my way from Cali to Chicago I was told to pull into the Lincoln Nebraska terminal.I did and there was a write up there waiting for me stating that I went home from Atlanta while loaded{I found out they told the customer in Dallas this also} So I signed it and waited until I got home parked the truck and headed to Chattanooga in my car with all my scale tickets and meal tickets from my weekend in Atlanta.Low and behold I sat down with the driver manager and his boss and said I was wrote up for going home loaded. DM said no I didnt...his boss read it and said yes you did....then I placed all the reciepts on the desk.Oh we can fix this right now...I said no you cant he lied to you and me right here and if I cant have a new manager I'll bring the truck back...and I did as some may have heard about it I bobtailed that truck not to Tunnel Hill but to Chattanooga to the cooperative offive...and parked it right behind a BMW that was in a spot that said Max Fuller.

 

You were right to bobtail 'er all the way to corporate. I really like your parking job.

However, these guys are gonna blister your DAC, boy. They probably already have. Have you gotten a copy of it?

Good luck on finding a good company to work for for the next five years.

 

they called and said they wanted me to return the US Xpress property to US Xpress property so I did. And as far as the DAC bahhh I drive local making as much as I did at US and am home every night.

 

Nice, Joker. You got one over on 'em for both yourself and me. I went to a USX orientation in Salt Lake back in 99 and got the run-around. Those guys had me there for five days sending me mixed signals. I finally got the message they didn't want to hire me, so I headed back home. I had to figure this out on my own, because they sure as hell weren't going to tell me. And I didn't get a dime in orientation pay after that Tuesday.

You also came out clean with a GOOD job on top of it all. I wish I could give you a high-five. It was risky, but you did well. Congrats.

 

It was feb of 2002 i did that anyways.Now I drive a dump wagon hauling in 3 states Georgia Alabama and Tenn and I get 30% of whatever i make with the truck which for local isnt bad at all. But as for USX and the other big companies I worked for it was hilarious to me that your manager will answer the phone and they have no clue who you are by name until you give them your truck number...