They are not all bad, Smiths out of Roaring Springs PA have a good reputaion and I have met a few who worked there in the past.
One of our drivers who screwed up in Domino’s a few weeks back and got banned from site, got a break when the company transfered him to Domino’s in Baltimore, he was lucky because usually getting barred from Domino’s is a nationwide ban, so he stayed on the company with all the fixed pay deals etc. Now I find he has left and become an owner operator with Land Star, I tried to tell him he is hardly ever going to see his kids again, having had some experience with the above company when self employed I tried to advice against him doing so but he was full of himself telling me how wonderfull the job is, 3 weeks out so far and getting further away from his family than ever 
Every time I have a bad patch at work I tell myself I’m gonna find another job but where in the USA am I gonna find another job like this ? … Nowhere on this side of the Atlantic.
billybigrig:
Only if you’re dumb enough to work for those that are desperate for drivers on bonehead boxvan OTR work. At least you’ll then have plenty of time in truckstops to bore the [zb] out of those that listen
Just like here there are plenty of decent jobs the fat dumb asses wouldn’t get or couldn’t cope with. My old boss would get a truck when he found a good driver, not the other way around. He had one of Swifts trainers come for a job once and booted him out of the drivers seat on the test drive
I made good money out of him. We got paid a proper rate, plus layover, fuel bonus, tarp money, oversize bonus, a family health plan and a few other bits n bobs. He was a big family man too and wouldn’t have the drivers out all the time to the point he aimed to have them all in the yard by saturday lunch so they could be washed and polished by his teenage sons and the drivers go home if at all possible depending on where you’d been.
He had good direct work through local manufaturers and his church mates not [zb] from brokers unless we were to far away for that to be practical. Plus his wife who ran it, while he was himself driving, was a smart cookie on the planning side.
He was a diamond but to be fair not unique. There were probably 10 other companies of similar standing in a 100 mile radius.
So just like everywhere there’s a good deal to be found IF you are good at your job.
If you’re a fat bull[zb]er then you will be found in truckstops, parked on fuel islands, stinking like 5 day old garbage, crashing into things, driving a buttoned down fleet motor(Blue, white or Orange) , babysat to the extreme and bemoaning your lot to any idiot who will listen
It has nothing to do with being “dumb” enough to work for this, that or the other. Mileage based pay on any company whatsoever is a precarious existence as the driver is in no way in control of his earnings and at the complete mercy of the company and what they happen to find in the way of work, or not. Even if you get paid layover pay, its only a token gesture in comparison to what could potentially be earnt in the same period of time if that time were actually spent driving.
As for your previous job, if it was as good as you say then what have you moved on to that’s even better than that? I’m not saying that Canada is crap, I like living here but the job is certainly more precarious than the UK when here you don’t know what you’ll earn for your time away and in the UK you do. Perhaps I was just lucky and every one else on here did unpredictable agency work in the UK but I was always on a fixed day rate + night out money and could state with complete certainty what my wages would be from one week to the next and it was my companies responsibility to run me economically to make a profit, rather than the situation here where its the drivers problem to suffer the consequences for his company who fail to do the same thing. This has nothing to do with me being any of the derogatory things you’ve described above, I’m not fat, I don’t smell and I don’t wish to sit in truckstops for days on end for no pay and I certainly don’t consider myself to be “dumb” for trying to make a go of things here and then pointing out things that I consider to be grossly unfair, not just for me personally but for drivers in general.
I always earned well in the UK, even if I worked for trip money, it was on a job with quick turnarounds. I got weekended quite a lot, but that was when I was doing four weeks on, six days off and on salary, plus nights out, so paid ■■■■ ups basically.
I adopt the same approach here, my time is free to my friends, if work want my time they pay me, simple as that, if they don’t like paying me to sit on my arse, it’s down to them to keep me rolling.
Things are different in The Maritimes, you are rather oppressed out there and that’s why I didn’t move there 
newmercman:
Things are different in The Maritimes, you are rather oppressed out there and that’s why I didn’t move there
I dont think we’re any more or less oppressed than Manitoba, its just the nature of most of our work that kills things here due to the shorter distances for much of our freight. You had a bad experience at Big Freight by the sounds of it and they’re not from NB, many people have been stung by H&R and many of their horror stories sound worse than what goes on in the Maritimes. A friend of mine who now lives in Ontario says there’s quite a lot of British guys there who moved to Ontario from MB and SK for exactly the same reasons people don’t like NB or PEI. The last one he spoke of did a few years at one of the Siemens group companies, which is a coincidence as that’s who I was originally going to come out with by decided on Donnelly Farms in NB instead.
Things are improving here though. One company in Woodstock, NB now pays 42 cents per mile which is more than some Manitoba firms pay, even more than a lot of firms in Ontario pay outside of the GTA. I did go for an interview of sorts there but my experience at Donnelly Farms has put me off east coast triangle reefer work for life and I actually want a home life outside of work, rather than driving within a mile of my house when returning to the yard and being expected to go back out again for another trip, or working maximum hours (plus the rest) and then having 36 hours off before going again. That sort of mentality is no different in Manitoba though, from what I can gather Flying Eagle want you to do one or two trips down to the US with a bare minimum 36 off in between before giving you a proper break of 2 or 3 days off. Its all work and no play just like many of the jobs in NB. I should add that I have nothing against Manitoba or Flying Eagle but I don’t think the grass is necessarily greener there on the most part.
Just reading some of these stories on this forum makes me cringe 
I am so glad sometimes that I work for this company… Here’s a for instance. I was told by Ben & Jerry’s that all sugar would be coming from another supplier from Friday for the foreseeable future, which would normally mean drivers being laid off especially the ones like me who live up mear B&J, either that or go long haul. Tomorrow (Friday) I have been told to preload 4 trailers then bobtail home and bobtail back on Monday, no loss of earnings. They will then keep me working down here all week and probably do the same next weekend, this has happened before, we are not really worried as the supplier can’t make good sugar and according to B&J quality control and recievers the sugar is crap, as the last time this happened it wasn’t long before B&J came running back with tail between legs saying 'Can we have some good suger please ? our sales are dropping off. It’s still my company that have the contract to deliver the sninking crappy stuff but from another terminal in PA.
robinhood_1984:
It has nothing to do with being “dumb” enough to work for this, that or the other. Mileage based pay on any company whatsoever is a precarious existence as the driver is in no way in control of his earnings and at the complete mercy of the company and what they happen to find in the way of work, or not. Even if you get paid layover pay, its only a token gesture in comparison to what could potentially be earnt in the same period of time if that time were actually spent driving.
To move to North America and complain about mileage pay is about as pointless as moaning that the steering wheel is on the wrong side or the air suspension only goes down. That’s the way it is, always has been and probably always will. It’s only precarious if you work for a [zb] company. I never had a bad week because of this and if I had more than one bad week I would of walked, simples. I can’t remember what our layover pay was because I only got it twice I think from memory as our work patterns dictated it to be an unlikely scenario. I can tell you that I got parked for nearly 40 hours by WA DOT running oversize in the winter when Snoqualme was dodgy despite having more weight on the drives, and the potential to add more by lifting the pusher, than the standard donuts (Swift, Werner, Marten, Schneider, England etc)that slipped, slid and spun past me 
However I still cleared more that week with an enhanced mileage rate and bonus for oversize and a 2 day layover payment. Despite that qualifying as a reset I was not expected to use it as one unless I wanted to. As I said, this is far from unique with the multitude of proper decent companies.
As for your previous job, if it was as good as you say then what have you moved on to that’s even better than that? I’m not saying that Canada is crap, I like living here but the job is certainly more precarious than the UK when here you don’t know what you’ll earn for your time away and in the UK you do. Perhaps I was just lucky and every one else on here did unpredictable agency work in the UK but I was always on a fixed day rate + night out money and could state with complete certainty what my wages would be from one week to the next and it was my companies responsibility to run me economically to make a profit, rather than the situation here where its the drivers problem to suffer the consequences for his company who fail to do the same thing. This has nothing to do with me being any of the derogatory things you’ve described above, I’m not fat, I don’t smell and I don’t wish to sit in truckstops for days on end for no pay and I certainly don’t consider myself to be “dumb” for trying to make a go of things here and then pointing out things that I consider to be grossly unfair, not just for me personally but for drivers in general.
I didn’t move on, we relocated. I still speak to the boss regularly and all he wants is a couple of months notice of my return so he can source a new truck and make the mods we need to it. To reiterate once more this was not a one off awesome job but representative of many of the good ones if you know your stuff. 
I wasn’t aiming that description at you just describing the average American dumbass you see working for big number OTR companies. They do this because no decent company will hire them and for them mileage pay is precarious. They shouldn’t be in the job and it’s them, in conjuction with the tossers they work for hauling for broker rates that are screwing the job. Lets be honest, half these tools are so thick they get routed because they can’t be trusted to read a map
I do appreciate what you are saying in some respects but no pay scheme is perfect, there will always be pluses and minuses. The trick is to find a job with a pay scheme that suits it and that applies everywhere in the world
My experience at Big Fright was not a good one, I did get layover pay though and a hotel after 24hrs, paid border crossings, paid tarping, strapping, extra drops and a fuel bonus.
My problem with them was not financial, I initially came out here to have a year or two as a working holiday, most of my time there was spent in Saskatchewan and as holiday destinations go, that is only a little way in front of Kabul, so I left to work at PBT and got to live my dream.
I had other, well documented, issues at BFS too, hardly surprising as they’re (Siemens, Donnelley, H&R, etc) all the same, they need to import drivers who no SFA about how things are over here as nobody in their right mind would work there if they were aware of how they work.
The main thing to think about is that I did something about it and quit. I didn’t accept it as the way it is over here. I found a job that met my requirements and five years later I’m still here and still very happy.
I too first looked st Siemens, but that Bobby Jo bird there was a nightmare at replying to questions, so they got crossed off my list, Alberta was out as it was difficult to get an LMO quickly, everyone was going PNP and I didn’t plan on staying long enough for that. The maritimes were out as I never heard a good thing about any firm out there.
Then I spoke to my Dad who told me my Uncle, was moving to Canada, I rung him, we stayed in touch and I followed his trips on BFS, he went all over the place and said it was ok on there. So I called them and came over, just as the 2008 recession started. BFS suffered a loss of freight, except for Saskatchewan it seems, so that coupled with my other issues sealed their fate for me.
The thing is, I know my value, I do a decent job, I put the miles on, I’m flexible, I look after the equipment and don’t ■■■■ customers off. That puts me in the top tier of drivers, so I don’t care which province you talk about, I wouldn’t have a bad job in any of them.
The same should apply to everyone, unless you are crap at your job, you should be working for one of the best jobs in the area you live in. If you don’t, then that’s nobody’s fault but your own…
For the past month I’ve been working for a company who have one of the best, if not the best reputation in New Brunswick. I’m not going to jump the gun and claim its the best job I’ve ever had but so far its going pretty well. I’m home every weekend, which is something that’s now important to me as I’ve got all my states crossed off and don’t really want to be down the road for weeks on end any more, especially if it means potentially sitting around longer for no money as per my Idaho trip scenario in the other post. I do miss the variety of long haul though so if this job doesn’t work out then I’d definitely consider moving back to my previous company. Most of the trips I did there were doable in 70 hours with practically no waiting time, its just the longer ones out west that could be somewhat problematic now.
My new job is all eastern seaboard work and that’s really doing my head in but a necessary evil if I want to be home weekends and I’m driving a 2005 Anteater but its immaculate for its age and very well maintained, though taking some getting used to after spending the best part of the previous 4 years in Cascadia’s which were great for living room and storage space. But then, I’m doing 4, sometimes only 3 nights away a week now.
I too just came here for what I thought would be a bit of a temporary adventure, maybe a year or two though I came prepared with everything required for PNP/PR if I decided I liked it. I of course knew it was going to me mileage pay and at the time that didn’t really bother me as despite doing much research and reading quite a few horror stories, I wasn’t prepared for just how much unpaid waiting time there would be on east coast triangle reefer work and running bent to make any sort of wage. I did put up with that for a year and a half purely to get PR and the day I received the email to notify me of my passport request for PR I jacked in and moved on. All of my subsequent jobs have been a step upwards, which isn’t a hard thing when you consider east coast reefer work is in the very bottom of the gutter.
Things do seem to be getting better in NB though. Connor’s have a yard in Woodstock and pay 42 cents per mile and a good friend of mine from Ireland who came over to Donnelly’s just before myself is at another local firm bobtailing to Virginia every week to collect new trailers and he’s on nearly that. My current job is 36 cents per mile and $20 for every pick and drop and I often do LTL work so have been getting between $100-200 per week just in picks and drops.
robinhood_1984:
I do miss the variety of long haul though so if this job doesn’t work out then I’d definitely consider moving back to my previous company. Most of the trips I did there were doable in 70 hours with practically no waiting time, its just the longer ones out west that could be somewhat problematic now.
I’d bet that you’ll find that conflict will increase the longer you are off it. It seems obvious that for anyone who’s planning to move over there,unless they really plan and intend to do relatively local work,what’s needed is to try to find what seems like the very rare type of job where you can combine long haul work with a decent home life.However it now looks like things are about to actually go further from that ideal with an hours and speed regime which will produce excatly the opposite scenario.
In which case it seems ironic that for many Brits it would be a case of trading the boring overregulated UK scene,with it’s mostly now relatively local distribution etc make up of job choice,for a North American one where the possibility of less boring long haul work is there but now with equal levels of overregulation and to all intents and purposes is out of reach unless you want to spend all the time tied to a truck and with an unreliable income often based on wether they can find the next load or not.That’s assuming the new hours regime would allow you to even shift that next load if/when it’s been found let alone then having to plod all over the distances of north america with a speed limited wagon at ( probably eventually ) euro type speeds when the hours regs eventually allow you to move. It’s an unbelievable catch 22 situation and I think if I was planning the move now I’d decide stay here under that regime.
There’s a lot of miles to be done in Canada, no silly reset rules to get in the way either
I run things to suit myself to a degree, I’ll do a 10/12 day trip and then take a long weekend off. It works for me and I plan those trips around social events as far as possible. So I have a ‘life’ as such.
Bit different last month, I took a week off in the middle of the month, but went back and stayed out for a couple of weeks and still had a good month in terms of wages and never had to draw holiday pay either 
Have emailed the college enquiring about the course…will post what their reply is. But from what it seems, it seems like an international apprenticeship for 2 years driving an orange truck.
Seems interesting that such things are being offered but we’ll see what they have to say.
Cheers
Jonny
jonnytruckfest:
Have emailed the college enquiring about the course…will post what their reply is. But from what it seems, it seems like an international apprenticeship for 2 years driving an orange truck.Seems interesting that such things are being offered but we’ll see what they have to say.
Cheers
Jonny
They will say whatever you want to hear to get the legal search fee from you my friend.
If you are really daft enough to do what amounts to slave labour in the worst company in the USA then do what you have to. DON’T settle for less than $70k per year and tell them you want at least one weeks vacation per year and every public holiday and see the reaction
The only reason they are trying this is because they can’t find Americans stupid enough to work for them.
Pat Hasler:
jonnytruckfest:
Have emailed the college enquiring about the course…will post what their reply is. But from what it seems, it seems like an international apprenticeship for 2 years driving an orange truck.Seems interesting that such things are being offered but we’ll see what they have to say.
Cheers
Jonny
They will say whatever you want to hear to get the legal search fee from you my friend.
If you are really daft enough to do what amounts to slave labour in the worst company in the USA then do what you have to. DON’T settle for less than $70k per year and tell them you want at least one weeks vacation per year and every public holiday and see the reaction
The only reason they are trying this is because they can’t find Americans stupid enough to work for them.
I have emailed them with no reply as of yet, but it’s more to get to know what it is they’re actually offering…and how much it would cost just to be nosey and ofcourse share with the TNUK squad the news
But I don’t plan on leaving my current job for it that’s for sure…after all I start my venture in gaining my hgv licenses next month so it would be silly to throw all that away for something that’s only temporary…been there done that. The ‘american’…well ‘canadian’ dream is just around the corner…so not far to go now 
No harm in asking though…
Cheers
Jonny
Yep, no harm but I feel sorry for the poor suckers why will think this is going to work out as some big adventure for them. I meet lots of drivers who work for them and they all look very poor and disheveled, complaining about the terrible pay and conditions. Two years is a long time to commit to having no private life whatsoever, living in a cab with some smelly git who has the manners of a pig and not earning enough to live on. Two years and end up broke with nothing to show for it. That’s even if he get’s this two year cheat past INS, which I very much doubt.
But people will fall for it if they see it as the big adventure driving trucks in the US like those guys in smokey and the bandit and will see of it as some sort of adventure with benefits…but as you said if most of the drivers are barely making enough to live on it’s hard to say what a brit with probably next to nothing will have going over there ( after all they’re advertising this for people from 21 to id assume 30)…not exactly an age where you’ll have a well off bank account to live on that sort of wage for 2 years…I’d rather wait a few more years and earn a proper wage for when I do ‘take the plunge’ to move over
Cheers
Jonny
It’s not such a great big adventure, there’s no Smokey and the Bandit or Convoy life, I have lived here 13 years and did the whole 48 states and coast to coast stuff, that lasted 6 months before I realised it was crap.
American truck driving is no big adventure, they may like it for a month or so but after that they will wonder how they can get out of it.
I did this with a different college for a year. Then went back every year for 5 years. All with the same CO-OP in Iowa. The pay was brilliant, drove various different trucks, tractors, combines, used a wide range of machinery I’d never of used in the UK. Accommodation, food, etc supplied and best part of £5000 a month. Only down side was the hours.
It looks good on your CV and you get 1 month either end of your visa to travel with pockets full of money.
After 6 years at it I’d saved close to 40 grand.
I’d recommend it to anyone
You are referring to the harvest scheme, this is different, it’s to get guys to work for Schneider which is without doubt the very worse company in the country, lowest pay, no benefits, no holiday pay, no rights.
Pat Hasler:
You are referring to the harvest scheme, this is different, it’s to get guys to work for Schneider which is without doubt the very worse company in the country, lowest pay, no benefits, no holiday pay, no rights.
No I’m not
Bridgewater college are referring to Schneiders in this instance and that’s the whole point of this topic. The company are renowned for how badly they treat their drivers, they can’t get any American drivers to apply with them except idiots.