Fortune Transportation

I just want to throw something out there in regards to this discussion. I drive for Knight Transportation on a dedicated flat-bed account. Our customer is SAPA, and their logo is on our trucks.

There are very few people at Knight who are even aware of this account. Twice I have been denied entrance into our very own terminals by the security guards One of those times was in Phoenix AZ - our main headquarters! I had to get my DM on the phone with the guy for him to let me in, and then he wanted me to drop my trailer outside the gate, because he said he could not allow any other company's trailers inside the gate. When I insisted that this was a Knight trailer he wanted to see the registration! Finally that satisfied him, but he assured me that I must be in some covert operation or something because he had never even seen a Knight flat-bed in all the years he had worked there!

My point is that sometimes there are very nice little needles in the haystack available at these larger companies, but it takes some effort to find out about them.

If you're wondering about pay/ benefits, keep this in mind: in a competitive industry (I'm talking about getting and keeping drivers here) the differences in benefits hardly make the changing worthwhile.

I guess it depends on how much makes it worthwhile. That will vary from person to person.

For me, there is enough difference in pay from some truckload carriers to some others that I would make the change as soon as it became possible.

Then, when you make the comparison between some of the major truckload carriers versus trucking in some other sectors (LTL, fuel hauling, and others), well, in some cases, there's really no comparison.

Dan says:

For me, there is enough difference in pay from some truckload carriers to some others that I would make the change as soon as it became possible.

In a way, I agree. Did you catch the last phrase in the second post?

And my point is not to talk you in to staying with Swift. It goes for any other company that will hire drivers with less than 3 years' experience.

Many trucking companies don't want to deal with rookies, and you need 3-5 years OTR experience before they'll talk to you. And they probably do pay more. But one year on the road isn't enough for them.

Dan says:

For me, there is enough difference in pay from some truckload carriers to some others that I would make the change as soon as it became possible.

In a way, I agree. Did you catch the last phrase in the second post?

And my point is not to talk you in to staying with Swift. It goes for any other company that will hire drivers with less than 3 years' experience.

Many trucking companies don't want to deal with rookies, and you need 3-5 years OTR experience before they'll talk to you. And they probably do pay more. But one year on the road isn't enough for them.

I've never worked for either, but just for illustration purposes:

Overall: Swift Transportation drivers average ~ 42k vs. Crete Carriers drivers average ~55k (based on data from multiple sources)

Both will hire with 1 year experience.

At Crete: • 1 year start at $.45 per practical mile

At Swift: • 1 year start at $.40 per hmg mile

(from company websites)

Dan wrote:

I've never worked for either, but just for illustration purposes:

Overall: Swift Transportation drivers average ~ 42k vs. Crete Carriers drivers average ~55k (based on data from multiple sources) Both will hire with 1 year experience.

Thanks for opening up my favorite can of worms. Dan these are salary surveys (Indeed & Glass Door, others) and represent a small fraction of the total number of drivers working for both of these companies. For example; the Indeed sampling for Swift is 287 drivers, about a 2% sample size. It's highly subjective, impossible to verify, and about as accurate as a weather forecast. Second time in a month I have seen this survey fodder presented as fact; first time I held my tongue because I got tired of being insulted by our resident non-driver expert, but not this time. Do not place credence in anything like this, it has limited credibility unless the entire driver pool is sampled and it's categorized by experience levels broken out from 1-10 years. Otherwise, meaningless for the purpose of evaluating potential opportunity at any given company.

I run Walmart Dedicated in the NorthEast, here are my facts: I made about 42k my first year at Swift including the reduced training pay (about $500 per week for 6 weeks) and orientation. Second full year including the training money reimbursement; 59k for 48 work weeks, third year 65k for 50 work weeks...and so forth and so on. At 2 months shy of my 5 year Swifty anniversary, if I work a minimum of 50 weeks this year I will exceed 70k excluding the quarterly bonus. This is why I get rather annoyed whenever any uninformed individual encourages a 1 year driver to look elsewhere. At the 1 year mark, a rookie driver is just getting started with their employer and have yet to understand or experience the opportunities that could come their way.

To further counter the survey information, the vast majority of the Swift Dedicated WM drivers (not OTR surge, full timers) working at DC7030 & 6096 (about 200) rarely make less than 1k per week before taxes, including the rookies for about a 5.5 - 6 day work week. Anyone who cannot pull that kind of number is eventually transferred back to OTR because they are negatively affecting the SLAs and driver/tractor utilization rates.

If you really want to open your eyes, stop relying on superficial surveys conducted by sites that are a haven for company bashers.

Speaking of first year pay. I was doing the math. If I continue as I am, I will break 50k by the end of my first year. I started with 32 cpm , at 33 cpm now (6 month) will make 34 cpm at my 9 month mark. At 1 year I go up to 37 cpm.

Apparently I opened a whole can of worms.

I've talked to numerous people (including the driver and terminal managers) and was always told the same thing: Dollar Tree is the only other option in my area. According to Fortune's website (and no, I don't always believe everything I read), they only require 1 year of OTR experience, pay a flat .37 a mile, guarantee 2500 or over miles and weekend home time. My friend also verified this. As a company driver you are also allowed to bobtail up to 60 miles a day as a personal conveyance without using drive time (Swift only allows Owner/Ops to do this).

As I stated before, I'm just looking for information and/or experiences from other drivers. Not trying to start a mutiny here.

I also forgot to add they only run the central states, so no California or New York. Another plus for me...I'm sitting in California right now after fighting traffic, Donner Pass and crazy 4 wheelers.

Lemmy I wish I knew more about them, but I don't. I am familiar with Dollar accounts...I think you are making a good decision to steer clear of that.

Good luck to you.

Wow, I completely forgot I had posted this.

I made the move to Fortune and stayed with them for 2 1/2 years. The only reason I left was due to family issues...I'd still be with them today otherwise. Being a smaller company, everyone knew me by name and would bend over backwards to make my job easier and help was available when I needed it.

Due to the all the bad things occurring now (Covid, shutdowns, etc) I'm currently not working. I'm hoping that I can work for Fortune again. They really are one of the best companies I've ever worked for.