Which carrier should I go with............NEXT??????

There are a lot of uppity carriers out there that turn their noses up at rookies. Well, excuuuuuuuuuuuuse meeeeeeeee!

Seriously though, I'm curious about carriers who do not take on inexperienced drivers for reasons that are NOT insurance-related. Do you work for one of these carriers? If so, what's so great about them?

 

i really think you should go to a school and get your CDL on your own, and then try to get an LTL job

trust me, people are going to tell you no LTL company will hire you without experience...ive seen it on here 1000 times

im 21 years old with a full time LTL job, no prior experience besides going to school to get my CDL

 

No doubt - I read it here all the time and continue to see either new or relatively inexperienced drivers getting hired here. Almost all the new hires here fit into one of two categories over the last year - relatively new or new, and drivers that already had a ton of LTL freight experience but lost their old job.

It's a myth that you cannot land at a good LTL company with no experience.

 

i would try all of these companies in your area before even thinking about looking at truckload carriers unless it is the OTR lifestyle you want



Rank Company 2005 Revenue (000) 2004 % Change 1 YRC Worldwide 8,741,600 6,767,500 29.2 2 FedEx Freight 3,645,000 3,217,000 13.3 3 Con-way Freight 2,816,647 2,532,201 11.2 4 UPS Freight 1,900,000 1,647,461 15.3 5 ABF Freight System 1,709,000 1,585,400 7.8 6 Estes Express Lines 1,388,348 1,003,651 38.3 7 Watkins Motor Lines 1,108,058 1,162,990 -4.7 8 SCS Transportation 1,098,031 982,270 11.8 9 Old Dominion Freight Line 1,061,403 824,051 28.8 10 Averitt Express 843,700 704,233 19.8 11 R+L Carriers 758,000 710,000 6.8 12 Southeastern Freight Lines 649,601 565,186 14.9 13 Lynden Inc. 600,000 450,000 33.3 14 TransForce Income Fund 522,580 451,945 15.6 15 AAA Cooper 496,857 447,136 11.1 16 CenTra Inc. 456,000 434,000 5.1 17 Central Freight Lines 372,140 386,601 -3.7 18 Vitran Express 352,693 303,017 16.4 19 New England Motor Freight 348,000 319,000 9.1 20 Roadrunner Dawes Freight Systems 345,162 335,971 2.7 21 Forward Air Corp. 320,934 282,197 13.7 22 Pitt Ohio Express 237,900 221,752 7.3 23 A. Duie Pyle Cos. 176,970 168,062 5.3 24 PJAX Freight System 164,222 149,982 9.5 25 Milan Express 163,000 141,000 15.6

i wouldnt mess with YRC though you probably wouldnt work there very long and i doubt they are hiring



edit: that list didnt copy and paste the way i thought it would....heres a link to it its about halways down the page:

http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/articl...anies_Special_Report_Excellence_in_Motion.php

 

I do want OTR, at least for a while. How long "a while" is remains to be seen. If I make it through school, training and get some good experience as a driver, and then decide I'd rather do LTL, there's a ConWay "pup yard" about 10 miles from my house. That's a good option in my book!

 

ONGB----I see you on here all the time...are you waiting for points to fall off your license or something? It's none of my business, I'm just curious why you haven't started driving semi yet?
As for your original question, most companies I have been at, the insurance companies dictate who they do and don't hire. I'm an o/o and personally wouldn't put a new guy in my truck cause I can't afford to risk having my rig tore up, but most bigger companies don't seem to concerned with that. I guess if I had a few hundred trucks I could roll the dice on a new guy too.

 

Well howdy, well ive been done there that, but i just went with people like the big companys , sure they abuse ya and treat ya poorly, but what do you care, at this point your just learning the ropes anyway, so let em have there fun, sure you wont make any money ether, but you dont care for that now anyway , just get your year in and then go after the one you want, hopes this help's, Everett

 

No, not waiting for points to drop off or anything like that. I drive a school bus for the school district in my town and the school year ends May 21. I took on a "rough bus", or so they said, and I'm going to finish the year out. The so-called rough kids just needed a driver to stick with them for more than a few weeks. They're not quite as rough as they were, they just needed consistency and a firm hand.

I've been able to use the last 6 months here soaking up some good advice and direction. I wouldn't trade the experience for months in a school. I'm fortunate to have had the breathing room before I get started. I wish more of the younger wannabes would or could take more time. But, what the heck, sometimes trial by fire can be a good thing.

 

Everett, you've got a knack for cuttin' through the crap to get to the good stuff. Thanks!

 

That's a pretty good list of places to drive but it's pretty old and a lot has changed. YRC has so many on lay off that it's not an option and Watkins is now FedEx National LTL which is a top notch job. P-Jax and Vitran are merged into one company now - not sure how big of a region they run either.

You can poke holes in any LTL job but overall the list you have there are pretty good places to work. I don't know anything about the regionals down south but if they're comparable to what's up here they're probably pretty decent to work for also. Every quarter we get a video from corporate going over our financial results and comparing them to the other LTL's - Old Dominion has been the most profitable and had the lowest operating ratio for the last two quarters and we've been second behind them in O/R the last two quarters. FedEx Freight has also become the LTL leader in market share in the last year overtaking YRCW.

ABF, Con-way, UPS Freight, Old Dominion, and FedEx Freight are all top level LTL jobs if you ask me with UPS Freight probably being the best in overall compensation providing you have a little seniority and can hold a money run.