Any Info On These Companies

Hi everyone I live in Pa and I am looking at a couple different flatbed companies. Yourga
Transport national
TMC
PGT
I was just wondering if anybody has some info on them. I just wanted to know what your average pay was and are the recruiters blowing smoke up my rear end? I'm just trying to find a company that pays okay and is a good place to start up

Just out of curiosity why just those 2? There are others. I drive for melton and it has been a great company this far. Everything I was promised they delivered on. I get have been getting around 2100 miles a week. And everyone has been so pleasant. Other drivers and my dm have been so helpful along the way. It feels like a family to me. If you want to discuss this in further detail we can talk. Pm me and I will shoot you my number.

The issue is money. I can't afford to pull in 600 net a week. I'd rather do percentage

Just out of curiosity why just those 2? There are others. I drive for melton and it has been a great company this far. Everything I was promised they delivered on. I get have been getting around 2100 miles a week. And everyone has been so pleasant. Other drivers and my dm have been so helpful along the way. It feels like a family to me. If you want to discuss this in further detail we can talk. Pm me and I will shoot you my number.

I understand that. I usually bring in between 800 to 1000 a week. And I am not in the top of the pay scale. Actually I am one step up from a student driver. Lol. They started me at .43 com because of my limited experience. I do wish you luck. I have always admired TMC's trucks. They are good looking.

Yea I really do like TMC. My only concern is I don't want stuck just husking lumber......

Hauling*

Michael, you have a unique way of coming up with some ideas that just aren't correct. I don't know how you have figured that getting paid percentage will yield you more money (I realize the companies that promote this make it seem that way) nor do I get where you got the idea that if you work at TMC you will be stuck hauling lumber all the time.

As a flat-bed driver I encounter TMC trucks all the time. When I'm picking up steel coils in Ohio, they are there - when I'm picking up slinky coils in Pueblo Colorado, they are there - when I'm picking up rolls of concrete re-enforcement wire in Connecticut they are there - when I'm picking up loads of angle iron down in south Texas, guess who is there - Yep, TMC. They even have a dedicated/specialized division that hauls boats across the country from a manufacturer in Minnesota to warm coastal communities way down in Florida! TMC is a flat-bed company - that is what they do - they haul flat-bed loads - I've even seen them in Pennsylvania picking up man-lifts with me over near Shippensburg.

Now, as to getting paid percentage here is how it works. Let's just say you are getting 25% of the load because that number will be easy to divide with for our example. Freight rates vary all over the country, and there are a lot of variables that determine what the rate is for each load. Let's just say that I'm making .42 cents per mile and you are getting 25% of the load. We are going to run the following loads at the same time.

We came out of Ohio with a load of shingles paying 1.55 per mile that had 500 miles on the load - you got paid 193.75 for your work, I got 210.00, but unfortunately that load terminated in an area where the freight rates were depressed a bit and our next load was wooden creosote fence posts that paid only 1.30 per mile and we've got a 700 mile load this time. Now you got paid 227.50 and I got 294.00. Well we got lucky and our load terminated in an area that had some good paying short haul loads of concrete paving blocks that are paying 2,25 per mile - we each have a 300 mile load that yielded you 168.75 and me 126.00. Our last load of the week is a nice run with 1,000 miles on it which gives us a total of 2,500 miles for the week, we're hauling some steel angle iron and the load pays out at 1.75 per mile. You yielded 437.50 and I brought in 420.00.

So let's take a look at how we did - You got a decent pay check grossing $1,027.50, and I managed to pull in $1,050.00. Now of course this is a made up example which I was able to set up purposely for an example to support my claim, but I assure you that this is how it works. You probably were unaware that the rates vary quite a bit depending on where you are and what you are hauling and a thousand other variables. When you are on percentage pay there are going to be some weeks where you really seemed to pull down some money because you happened to be in the right place at the right time, and there are also going to be some regretfully poor weeks where you worked just as hard but got paid less than what you thought you deserved. With mileage pay you always know where you stand, and it is not affected by the volatility of the freight rates.

I didn't go through this to support one way of getting paid over the other, if you prefer to get percentage pay that is all fine and good with me, but I just want you to understand it better before you get hood-winked into something that might disappoint you.

Have you seen Steve's TMC Diary? It may give you some added insight about the company and what it is like to work for them. Steve is a member here who used to work for TMC and he left us a nice journal of his experience at their orientation and training.

Well I have a friend in TMC and lately he's been hauling lumber and starving.... As for mileage being a regional driver is going to be hard to really pull in the miles where as percentage can add up to with less miles no?

As for mileage being a regional driver is going to be hard to really pull in the miles where as percentage can add up to with less miles no?

This is the kind of stuff that confuses people about percentage pay - it sounds like you'd be making more money, but it isn't necessarily the case.

I thought I laid it out pretty well, but let's take another stab at this new angle you are asking about. First off regional doesn't necessarily equate less miles. I run a dedicated regional flat-bed account and you'd be hard pressed to find me doing anything less than 3,000 miles a week. Now if you are going to run a regional account and go home every weekend, then yes you are going to run less miles than me, but that is because of your choice of home time, not because you are regional.

Here's the way you have to look at percentage pay. The freight rates are always charged and paid by the mile. You have got to remember that - your company that you work for is charging by the mile, and getting paid by the mile - always.

Therefore if you are a regional driver who is only doing 2,200 miles per week, they are going to pay you what ever that is worth to them. It doesn't make you worth more to them just because you checked a box on a piece of paper that says I want to get paid percentage pay. You ran so many miles, they charged for so many miles, and there is a number out there that makes it worth their while to have you doing this job - that number is what you are going to get paid. Now whether they come to that number by giving you a percentage of the load, or by paying you a mileage fee, both of those ways of coming to a dollar amount that you get paid are based on the amount of miles that you moved the freight. Therefore you are not going to make a lot more money just because it is calculated as a percentage. Some weeks when earning percentage pay (like I tried to point out in my previous example) will yield you a little more than others due to the prevalent freight rates of what you moved and where you were when you hauled it. Other weeks you are going to see a little less on your check. It all comes out in the wash - to be honest with you percentage pay actually is designed to protect the company from paying you more than that number we just talked about that makes it worth their while to keep you out there doing this stuff. If you are stuck in an area that has depressed freight rates they may not be doing as well by paying you a standard mileage rate, but you will still be getting what you expect.

Oh, and by the way the reason your friend is starving is because he is on percentage pay. He is a perfect example of what I'm trying to illustrate for you. He is stuck in an area where he is hauling low paying lumber loads, therefore since he is on percentage pay he is getting paid based on the low paying loads that he is hauling right now. If he were getting paid by the mile he would know how much he is going to get paid for running 2200 miles. It wouldn't matter if he was hauling lumber or piles of Gold!