Werner or Swift?

Not when I rode with them. But Everyone will have horror stories about whatever company they dont like. You are going to have to do your research and find the 'truth' between the lines. I know some very happy swift drivers, some very unhappy ex ones, some very happy werner drivers, some very annoyed/angery ex ones. All I know is what I experianced with warner, 2 of the 10 stops were restroomless, with a TS less than 10 miles away, and they made us sit at the gate. Promising him home time, that never came etc.

 

computer logs suck. you'll spend 10x as much time (from the horror stories i've heard) doing your logbook that way rather than by book and pen. They're geared more for keeping accurate accounts of your movements than anything. Say you happen to run late into the night, and the ONLY parking spot is at the end of a row of trucks, who happen to have just parked in the middle of the lot to be out of everyones way. Then you wake up, find you're the only one parked there, and you want to move. So you crank her up...and pull around and into a parking spot. Guess what, you just started your clock. So you dont get a load for 4 hours, then find you have to run 600 mi to get it there on time...now u gotta turn it down cause you dont have the time. (now i'm sure you can 'call in' and have it fixed to show you not started....but again...not 100% sure)

Swift, on the other hand, has the freight and will keep you rollin'. So as long as you dont start turning down every load that isnt a 500+ miler. Sure you'll get the occasional 40 mi run, or 2-3 250 milers. Not every load can be a 2000 mi cross country run.

Like this weekend for me, for example. I went MT friday morning. Asked to get planned by my home terminal, cause i knew if i didnt get something, and memphis planned me...i'd see 300 mi for the weekend....IF I WAS LUCKY. I ended up starting with a 40 mi run. Stacked with an additional 3 loads that gave me 1200 mi total for the weekend (well till monday night). 1200...or 300.....if you want to run and PROVE yourself....you'll run. All the drivers whining "i dont get miles" and "i'm lucky to see 1200 mi a week".....dont like to run. or expect every load to be 850 miles.

yeah...swift will treat you like a number. But it is up to YOU to STAND OUT on your driver manager's board.

 

I've loaded with a bunch of Mansur drivers... don't know a whole bunch about 'em but the guys I talked to seemed to say they were OK. I THINK they still pay on % of the line haul...they do haul some cheap freight BUT if you keep you mouth shut and the pedal down it would be a good place to go.

 

We're very happy with Swift. I will say this about getting runs. I see drivers (even on the dedicated fleet we're on) who complain about not getting runs.....however those same drivers are the ones who turn down runs because they're not big miles.

We're dedicated and as a team we're suppose to only run the long runs on this fleet. However, we're part of a fleet. We're part of a team. Are we going to sit there while our trip planners and DM or the night dispatch crew can't get a driver to cover a load? Heck no. We get our little rumps in our team truck and we run a store deliver run of 150 miles. We're part of the team and that's why when we ask for an extra day off our fleet manager says "you've got it". We don't let our team/fleet suffer just because we don't want a low miles run.

The other thing I wish to say is that it's up to us to prove our worth to the fleet. It's called a JOB not a handout.

 

Not if your willing to run legal. What's your Swift truck number again? I'll be sure to stay clear of you.

 

Do i occasionally run past my 11/14/70 hr clocks? Sure i do. Do i run HOURS and HOURS past those clocks? well no...duh. thats dumb. Like my last load for example. i was to drive the load and drop at one of our drop yards. I knew i had 4 hrs to drive, and it'd take me pretty close to 4 hrs to get there. And it did...every minute of it. But you're saying i should have slowed down and parked the truck somewhere 15 miles away, never make it to my stop (which was my 3rd load of the day by the way...so it was a full 14 hr day) just so i could say "i always run legal" ?? You are allowed by the DOT to run up to 2 hrs past your clocks to find a 'safe haven'....NOW before i get any crap for this...i'm not saying the DOT lets you drive UP TO 2 hrs 'free of charge'. You get as much time as you need to find a safe place to park your truck. So if i need to spend 15-30 min hooking a trailer, then another 15 min running down the road to a truck stop/wal-mart, then i get to do it. If you 'flag' it like you're supposed to do...i know safety will still 'catch' you for running over your 11/14 hr clocks. (well i should say the computer will)

Do i run 100% legal 100% of the time. No....but 99.5% of the time i do. I'm not one of these drivers who will get pulled around back of a scale house, and put out of service because i'm caught running 5 hrs past my 11/14s just to get a load there on-time. You've gotta be creative. Split sleeper if you have to....check with the planner/after hrs driver services, send in a mac 22 (running late macro). I'd rather do any of those, than to accept a load i cannot legally carry....that'd force me to run hours past my 11/14 just to get an extra few bucks in my pocket.

yeah...there will be a few who will jump on and say "i always run legal". And i say....in a year or two, give me your logbook, and access to your sensortrac data, and i bet i can find where you weren't.

Lets ask it this way....you get a load that takes you home for the weekend....you get tied up in weather, and you find yourself 15-30 min from home when you run out of time. No truck stops around, except there is a TINY TINY hole in the wall bar with a huge parking lot, but in not so good area you'd trust to leave your truck for a couple days. Legally, you cant drive on....DOT says you have to find the first place to park your truck. ANY Joe Blow will say 'screw it, i'm going onto the house'.

 

wonder if you've ever delt with a swift recruiter personally, or you just taking 'hear-say' and assuming they are a 'bunch of liars'? i'm guessing you haven't, and just taking others negitive words of them as scripture. Most your big companies wont give you a dedicated or regional run 'out of the gate', you gotta prove yourself. With or without any experience. They will want to make sure for themselves you can drive a truck 100 miles at a time without running over anything. Swift/Weener both have different makes of trucks. Both run KWs, Freightshakers, Internationals. They both have several locations...but that dont mean you'll always get to drop your load and pick up another one 'just to keep you moving'. Each terminal (both swift and werner) you pull into, have drivers waiting on a load. Unless they turn down the load, or you got some juice with that planner, etc., you're not going to get to pick their pocket...all the time.

Besides, if they have you drop a load in a yard...it very well might be because you get paid more, and they want to put that load on another driver who gets paid less to run the load most of the way. Don't matter who you go with, you're not a special driver who gets to 'keep rolling' just because you drop a load off at a terminal.

I just drove past a Werner terminal the other day...and i sure saw alot of trucks just sitting around.

 

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...ere/122008-swifts-screws-the-experienced.html

 

NEITHER i worked for both training with them is a JOKE find a smaller company that gives a crap both companys have 90% driver turn over within 1 year good luck

 

Ah, so he was just quoting other people.