Questions about Transport America?

I work at TA and I can say it's alright, but not great. The trucks are governed at 62, some sneak through at 63 from so cal trucks but all are basically governed at that except teams. My biggest gripe with the company is short runs and poor planning, lots of 2-300 mi trips. Although I have had a high of 13000mi in 30 days i no longer have that dispatcher, and what got me the miles was Canada and FedEx, BTW border crossing only pays $25 each way. They also do lots of relays, so you will not usually get long trips, about a trip a day. Detention pay after 3 hrs, and you have to fight to get it and even then it's not much, about 13 bucks an hr I think.

Also I had 4 trucks my first week, equipment there is iffy the shops generally don't fix anything and they take forever.

Positive pts about company are if you live in great lakes you can get home allot, but if you are in south it's much harder. You can choose your own routes and they have ezpass and prepass which is awesome. Though you need approval for 80 in Indy and Ohio.
Also, nights and weekends will not do you much good, and you will be frustrated if you aren't preplanned several days out, which you have to be very persistent to get done consistently.

If you just need to get started it's not a bad company, but if you have better options I'd go with that. Starting pay isn't bad for new divers @34-36cpm. Benefits aren't very good though and in IMO expensive.

 

Had the exact same test at Gordon when I went through orientation.

 

Yeah, insurance policy in every aspect taking all the fun out of trucking. I'm sure no company genuinely cares if you get hurt, they care about L&l and claims. Insurance premiums, even the shippers/receivers where we go have all this maze of procedures set up by a risk assessment analyst and actuary to "reduce" risk and thereby lower premiums. The biggest thorn in drivers side of course, governed speeds, so slow to reduce premiums... Not necessarily for fuel, manufacturers actually claim 65 is the best mpg and also less emissions problems at that speed

 

Well I agree, everyone with a gripe always says they run hard, blah blah blah. And for a minute they were running me pretty good, I had 1300 mi in 30 days. Then I got a new dispatcher, and my miles stink. Lots of downtime, all live load live unload, lots of multi stop, bs appointment times that limit how much you can run cuz apt is 12hr after your eta.
I've been working here since July, I've been home twice and once for reset and pm (live near terminal). After couple weeks of crap runs, small paychecks I've decided to be very vocal about it to the company. There's no reason to be running this slow, I'm hundred percent on time I check my eservices report card every week to make sure they don't add something by mistake. I was doing great running amazon and FedEx, love those runs. Now it seems I'm on primarily retail, and this company doesn't have a fleet setup for retail. My thinking is we run nfi and premier brokered loads, only we don't have trailer pools at these customers and it's always l/l l/u and can only deliver during business hours.

Anyways, the philosophy that you just w work hard and get rewarded like they will always take notice is a bit debunked. Lots of factors take place, and a lot has to do with things out of your control. The planners don't think oh this person that person, it's this truck this location this load, that truck that location that load. Your success is largely tied into other people's decisions, and I think they are just not organized enough to run people according to their abilities and work ethic.

Also it comes back to the freight we haul, we are good with some customers in some markets, but lots of runs you can tell when you go there, we're the small guy, we don't have the power some of our competitors have to negotiate, and we get the loads that are kinds f'd up and the company can't turn diem the business. Just my hypothesis, but I think there's evidence when you go to location there's only a few or none of our trailer and dozens of one or more carriers with a bigger contact with customer

 

What is their dedicated south run? I live in Monroe GA between Walmart DC and General Mills. I got 9 months experience but have not driven since 9/14. Do they have Walmart dedicated>

 

Nothing dedicated out of Atlanta, there's dedicated out of Alabama but it's team. You would just be otr, expect to see lots of great lakes area, and pa, MD, nj. From what I've heard from divers in the south the freight isn't as heavy rush there, but you're right about the general Mills and Walmart. Why would you ever want Walmart dedicated? They take on avg 4hrs or more to unload, and you only get 12$ hr after 3hrs, can't break on property usually, if you really wanted dedicated I'd go with FedEx. Basically always drop n hook, no down time and consistent miles.