Averitt | Teams

ltl lifer

Sr. Citizen & Gold Member
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A flyer is out and a newspaper ad soliciting for shuttle teams in DAL and HOU. Are the members of our management team as ******** as they act? Gee whiz.

Shuttle drivers being left home every night and these mental midgets want to put on teams. We dont need or want the teams we have nor their useless sleeper trucks.

Maybe garys and little dick could be successful at lawn service but I doubt it.

Averitt.....Making fools of themselves for 40 years.
 
They get a 2fer LTL instead of just one driver not getting miles they can now have 2 drivers not getting miles...
 
talked to a shuttle team friday, they said they had been been killed with miles this week, not the good way, but 250-300 mile loads all week, which add up if dispatch is efficient and keeps you rolling, but it gets tough to sleep for that guy in the back if you are stopping to drop n hook or get loaded a couple of times during his break
 
That is no way to operate a team operation. AE needs about 4-6 teams TOTAL! That's it. I have said it since I have been on TB. Running an LTL operation with teams is a bad idea. We are not a nationwide carrier. We are a 1/4 of the US carrier and every load can be handled with single daycab drivers. The drawback to this possibility is our corpoate management structure. Until this bunch is cleaned out we will be ruled by incompetence of the highest level. They cannot see how this could operate and it could operate very efficiently. Teams would only be needed to run LAX out of DAL and MFS. That's it! The rest is done by relay but again it would require putting an individual in place that understands the concept of coordination, planning and implementation. We currently do not have this in our company.

A past employer (not going to mention who) had the BEST central dispatch operation that I have ever seen in my 35+ years in the business. They ran an efficient and successful operation and they are one of, if not the biggest, carriers today because of it. Our people could learn from them. They did it with daycabs 100% unless, of course, they got behind due to heavy freight volumes and they would hire contractors to get them caught up. This Mickey Mouse operation at AE with teams running 200-300 mile dispatches is a joke. Like you, I feel sorry for the poor person in the bunk trying to sleep with a drop and hook every couple hours. Plus, they don't get paid a premium for being a team.

Running an LTL operation without pups is also a bad idea even though I hated messing with them as AE didn't want to pay the driver for breaking them down and docking them...another expectation of "do it as a courtesy". But pups is not what this thread is about.
 
I remember back in the days when big E was just a regional carrier. I personally knew some guys that ran team for them back then, and it was a hard life.
Short hooks over and over for 5 days straight. Super hard for the one in the bunk to stay asleep.
Just as soon as a single bid would come open they would jump out of those sleepers quick.
 
I was with a 20 truck outfit and the owner forced us to team to Canada with multiple stops. If the FMCSA was serious about safety then teaming would be illegal, especially in an LTL and short haul environment.
 
If the FMCSA was serious about safety then teaming would be illegal, especially in an LTL and short haul environment.

Excellent point!!!!!

That is the point. Like all other government bureaucracies, it is nothing more than a revenue generating machine and they don't give a rat's a$$ about safety.

I agree. All teams (including the sleeper trucks they ride in) should be banned.
 
AE is definitely not a team company, as you mentioned the teams dont receive any extra and often make less than a single driver, yes, teams were recently paid less than singles. That was my justification when a dedicated run came to an end, I could make more per mile, not have to try to sleep in a moving truck, not take the risk of being in an accident that's beyond my control every time I go to sleep, not have to deal with another personality, not have to share a "closet" for a week at a time..... I didnt see the advantage when the dedicated run ended. AE had some great runs for teams and one time, the miles were unbelievable, over 6k in 5 days, and 7200-7400 in 6days, but as a wild team... there should be an incentive. Some companies give bigger, faster trucks to teams, almost every company gives the team a little more pay.
 
And I agree, in the areas where we have terminals, especially with the amount of t/l trucks we have, teams are not needed especially if dispatch would effectively utilize other equipment. Years ago, before teams become common here, we used to just relay loads that were "hot" or expedited.
 
if dispatch would effectively utilize other equipment.

There is the problem in a nutshell. Imagine if you will being in an Averitt sleeper in west Texas where the speed limit is legally 85 mph (may be posted differently but that is the law). You would get blown off the road by trucks that are more concerned about getting the freight down the road than how green they appear to the public.
 
Shuttle teams are an unnecessary nuisance. But, the clowns that run this place will never get it.

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:LMAO:Maybe ...with all the "BEDROOM" trucks they are buying ...they will get rid of the SLEEPOVER bids and long mile shuttle bid runs....delete those driver positions to COMBO....maybe that would bring a few of those "NOSE IN THE AIR" shuttle drivers back into the real world.:stirthepot::shift:
 
They took away our last laydown runs 2 years ago in Nor,and we only have one bid run that I would consider long. We have more temps running shuttle now than combo's,and I'm not sure what that is all about.
 
Those "sleepover" runs are called Laydowns and as badly as I wish we had some left, we don't. Take us down to underpaid combo and/or Truckload and I will STRONGLY consider finding other employment. As a matter of fact, I know I would. Be working within a week or so.
 
Reality check #2, Shuttle drivers have the graviest job in the blue collar division of Averitt, highest paid and least worked, physical that is. But on that note I still speak to and go out of my way to help TL drivers with directions or anything else they may ask.
 
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