USA Truck, Inc. - Van Buren, Ar.

yeap your right. no-one should run 2 log books, sorry i should have mad this clear. i was young and very DUMB for doing this. money isnt worth your life or a familys life.....do it legal or dont do it

 

I have been driving for usa for 7 weeks now and have a few comments.
mileage-has been pretty good really,my highest was 3344 my lowest{last week}2250.As for getting home I decided to stay out for 3 weeks at a time{following my second trainers advice}and have gotten home on time and even ahead of schedule both times[in fact am home now waiting to go back out tommorow morning]I don't count those paychecks for my low mileage ratings it happens that you lose miles being home 3 days.As for drop and hook I have had more of them than live loads.Like three to one.My longest load wait was 5 hours when I foolishly chose to have my load unloaded at the dollar tree in berwich,Pa.But I found out from the guard that I could have dropped the previous day if I had known{was told on qual com that it had an appoint. time, wrong!]I have found that you should call ahead and find out if you can del. early.And you should also ask for directions at the same time,usa's directions are sometimes rediculously wrong{supplied by drivers I've been told,can't figure out how those drivers found the companies based on these directions].As for equipment new drivers start out at the bottom of the totem pole,I'm operating a 2003 columbia freightliner with a 400 detroit.Has'ent given me any problems so far and as far as not servicing their equipment the demanded I stop at a term. for servicing since the truck had'nt been serv. for awhile[previous drivers fault from what I read on the past qc mess].They changed out both steer tires because one had been changed in the past and they wanted a match.If I think of anything more will post this one has gone on to long

 

Congrats barkhorn for making it work.
It will be interesting to c what you think of them a month,month,s and a year from now.
AT least in a few moths youl have enough hopefully experience to where you can move on if need be.

 

You can't drive 10 hours every day - you'll run out of hours on the 70-hour rule in 7 days (you cannot drive after having been on duty 70 hours in a rolling 8-day period). Plus, there's loading/unloading time (you have to log *some* time for this - I log 15 minutes for bumping the dock or doing a drop/hook, then hit the sleeper while waiting to be loaded or unloaded, and waiting for the qualcomm to beep with pro number and directions, or next load assignment). Then there's fuel stops, scaling heavy loads, pre-trip inspections, etc. etc. Also, you can't drive past the 14th hour after you come on duty for the day. What happens when you wait 2 hours to be unloaded, then drive to your next load, arrive 2 hours before the pickup appointment, and don't get done loading until an hour after the appointment time, then have to stop for fuel and to scale the load? You also have to eat and use the restroom sometime.

They don't tell you where to fuel on the Qualcomm. We have a list of truck stops on our fuel network that we can fuel at, plus there's fuel at our Van Buren, West Memphis, Roanoke, and Shreveport terminals. Find one on your route and fuel there - there's a few hundred of them, so you'll almost never need to get "out of network" fuel - I've never had to in a year and a half of driving for USA Truck.

We run mostly in the area enclosed by a line drawn from Laredo, TX to Minneapolis, MN to Boston, MA to Jacksonville, FL and back to Laredo. We occasionally get a load going to the west coast, but it's pretty rare and those usually go to trainers whose students are ready to run as a team (see below).

You are not paid actual miles driven - you are paid "short-route" miles. If you get 2800 paid miles, you will have driven more like 3000-3200 odometer miles, maybe a bit more. A couple of weeks ago I had my best week yet - 4045 paid miles. Average is about 2800-3000 for a whole week on the road, obviously less for a week that includes home time.

We no longer have PrePass in our trucks. They tried it for a year, and gave it up.

We have EZ-Pass for tolls in Illinois, West Virginia, and the Northeast. We also have PikePass for Oklahoma tolls. USA Truck does not pay or reimburse for tolls in Ohio or Indiana without prior approval from dispatch via Qualcomm, which will not be granted except in extreme weather conditions or on loads that are very time-sensitive. They will not pay for Kansas or Florida tolls under any circumstances. I've never needed to run a toll road in Texas, so I don't know what the policy is on those.

Our trucks are governed at 63mph. Of course, you can attain higher speeds if you have a nice heavy load of paper or scrap aluminum and are going down a big hill

If USA Truck pays for your training (typically at a C-1 school), you are under contract to drive for USA Truck for 1 year, starting from the day you are dispatched on your first load as a solo driver, which happens after you complete school, a month on a trainer truck, orientation, and the logbook and road tests. $45/week is deducted from your pay for the first year. If you leave USA Truck for any reason during that year (including being fired without cause - Arkansas is a Right to Work state), you are responsible for $5300 for your schooling and orientation expenses. If you make it to the end of the year, you get a $4000 discount on school and a check for about a thousand bucks as a refund of "overpayment" ($45 times 52 weeks is $2340). You are then a free man, and owe nothing in the event you leave the company.

After school, you will spend a minimum of 4 weeks with a trainer. Last I heard, the pay during training is $350/week, though they may have upped it recently. Some trainers are good guys, some are horses' rectums - just like any other group of random people. You'll run your butt off and hopefully learn how to drive, back up, scale loads, slide tandems, and keep a log book in the real world (the school doesn't teach you how to drive a truck, it teaches you just enough to pass the state test and get a shiny new CDL). You'll also hopefully learn a bit about what it's like living on the road, how to plan trips, how to manage your money (hint: when you get your own truck, get an electric cooler - stay out of the Flying J buffet). Once your trainer determines you are ready to drive the interstate without constant supervision, you will run as a team for the rest of your time on the truck - you sleep while he drives, and vice versa. If you hit anything while with your trainer, the situation will be reviewed, and you can probably expect an extra 2 weeks on a trainer truck. If you have a DOT reportable, preventable accident while on the trainer truck, you can probably expect a bus ticket home and a bill in the mail for your schooling. So it behooves you to be careful (just like it will after you upgrade to solo driver - you don't want accidents on your DAC rergardless of what happens, so long as you plan to drive a truck). Note: if, on Day 28 on the trainer's truck, you are in Oregon and the only load they have in the area is going to Chicago, you will not go straight from Oregon to Van Buren for orientation. You will be required to complete the dispatched load you are on, and maybe another load or two, while they try to route the trainer truck through Van Buren.

Assuming you make it through the training, you go for 3 days of orientation in Van Buren, AR. You will be put up in a cheap motel and taken to the terminal every morning on a company bus driven by a nice lady named Mary who bakes banana bread and cookies and sells them to the drivers (try the banana bread - it's excellent!)

First day of orientation you will take a logging test. Then you'll take a road test, in which you'll pull a trailer around the tightest corners and down the narrowest streets in Van Buren that it's legal to drive a tractor trailer on. If you take down a sign or telephone pole, or drag the trailer over a curb, you fail the test. Finally, you'll be required to back that trailer into a spot that's 11 and a half feet wide - you have 10 minutes. If you do not get out and look before you put the truck in reverse, you fail the test. If you hit a barrel, you fail the test. I just had to take all those tests again, as part of my becoming a trainer. I was...well, not exactly scared, but definitely uneasy when taking those turns - I had to put the tractor all the way into the oncoming traffic lane, which meant I had to sit a ways back from the corner and wait for traffic to clear before making the turns. I missed the curb on that last right turn by a few inches - and I took the whole left turn lane for the setup, and turned into the oncoming lane of the street I was turning onto, staying within a few inches of the outside curb with the left steer tire until the trailer tires cleared the curb on the inside of the turn. I also took just under 6 minutes to complete the backing test, and got out to look 4 times. It actually looks tighter than it really is, but there are no lines on the ground to line up on.

After the tests, a man named Sam, who missed his calling as a motivational speaker, will spend the remainder of those 3 days telling you about how easy it is for a truck driver to kill someone by doing dumb things or not paying attention, how hard life is on the road, how it's worth it to stick it out, and how important it is to stay focused on safety and to not let the bumps in the road get you down. You'll be instructed on company policies and procedures, and watch a slide show featuring photos of accident scenes as a wake-up call to show you what happens when you do something dumb or don't pay attention to what you're doing (lots of mangled dead people - very sad really).

You'll be assigned a truck and a Fleet Manager. Your truck will probably not be in Van Buren, meaning you're in for a bus ride. You'll either go home for a few days then take another bus to your truck, or you'll go straight to your truck and spend a minimum of 2 weeks on the road before you go home - this depends on whether you got to go home between training and orientation.

You will not be assigned a brand new truck right off the bat. You may have to pick your truck up at a towing company where it's been sitting for 6 months after a driver abandoned it. Then again, you may be picking your truck up at the Shreveport terminal, freshly cleaned out by the shop guys there. They might even have run it through the "wash bay" there after cleaning it out. It's a roll of the dice.

Disclaimer: I drive for USA Truck, and just finished the class and tests to become a trainer, though I haven't yet gotten a student. After I deliver this load in Knoxville tomorrow, I'm deadheading home and will get my first student after I come back out.

 

Eh, Sam's a good guy. Sure, he's sometimes a little over-the-top, but he's energetic and good-natured, and he's always got a moment to ask how you are and shake your hand. And he's genuinely excited about his job - that alone can make even an otherwise mediocre employee a superstar.

 

jlanthripp thanks for an informative post that isnt 100% negative. Ive been wanting to tgo into the trucking industry and am deciding which school and company. this has helped, its hard to decide with so much negativity on the boards. USA truck is on my list since I'm a noob. My choices currently are prime USA truck PAM swift or CRE. Im leaning towards prime and USA truck. If i decide to go to USA I hope I get a trainer like you, you seem like a good guy who has a positive attitude.

 

I would look harder. Just because your new doesn't mean you need any that you listed. I am not being negative, but you mentioned all the ones that I would never work for. I like to make good money and see home. Some of these don't pay well or see home more than every 5 weeks. CRE is the worse out of your list, the others are close behind.

 

home time not much of a biggie to me im 26 still living with my parents i have no girlfriend, or many bills. just want to get my cedl get in a year and move to a better company.

 

What got me worried at orientation was when Sam pulled his wallet out and said "this is a lie,it's not about the money its about being proud of doing the best you can do in your profession"I'm sorry but this is a capitolist society,sounded to me like we were being told not to expect to much which after 2 months with them has proven prophetic, my miles have dropped.