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Does anyone out there have more info on Covenant Transport? I will hopefully be starting trucking school in about 3 weeks. My recruiter from the school told me to apply to Covenant as well as Swift and Stevens. Any info on the other 2 would be helpful as well.

Thanks

Would definitely consider working for them to get 2 years experience.

Got my CDL a month ago so when i finish my driving experience with my school i will call them.

That's interesting. Things are indeed changing rapidly these days with new technologies in the trucks, new laws on the highways, and new tracking systems by the government like CSA 2010 http://www.bigrigdriving.com/comprehensive-safety-analysis-2010-csa2010. There's a lot of information available on the internet but it comes from a lot of different sources and can take a good amount of time to try to keep up with.

This might raise some alarms with drivers, but I wonder if some sort of mandatory schooling be put in place to help drivers track important changes in the industry. Maybe the government could come up with online computer-based training programs that need to be taken every so often (every two years maybe?) to show that drivers are aware of and understand the most current laws in the industry?

Things have never changed more quickly in the industry than they have in the past few years. It is indeed hard to keep up with.

I unfortuneately talk to a lot of driver's who cant keep up with the ever changing industry.Lack of education.

1 NATIONAL standard should be enforced.Along with aptitude test.Driving schools should lengthing  programs.I hear over/over I got enough training to pass the test.

I worked for big W for 10yrs always treated me good.

I've written a blog on this subject and you can find it here: http://www.bigrigdriving.com/2010/trucking-industry-debates/should-body-mass-index-be-enforced-in-the-trucking-industry

I definitely feel BMI should be used in the trucking industry as a hiring criteria for a number of reasons, including the ability to find responsible drivers that are not at high risk of losing control behind the wheel (heart attack), a reduction in the cost of healthcare to trucking companies, and to improve the image of trucking companies and truckers nationwide overall, amongst many other reasons. I elaborate much further in my blog.

However I do not feel the government should be enforcing these standards nationwide. I feel trucking companies themselves should have the right to enforce the standards themselves if they so choose and to set the level at which they would like the standard to be. The main reason for this is the constant fluctuation in driver demand at any given company at any given time. If a company has plenty of drivers they need to be able to raise their hiring standards to attract more qualified drivers, and if they see a sudden rise in demand for drivers they need to be able to lower their hiring standards a bit to fill the vacant seats.

There are not that many trucks out there that are not governed anymore. Most seem to be set at 70mph and lower.  I think 65mph is most common. Anyway whatever your truck is governed at, most drivers do not want it to go lower. I'm one of them.

I agree with Mr. Clay that there are a lot of bad drivers out there. These new rules are going to take care of that issue and the carriers who "don't seem to care" about that. We are to be professional when on the road.

Other things are going to have to change to which has been mentioned--sitting to get your load dispatched/loaded/unloaded and there needs to be enough time in delivery so driver can eat, fuel, use restroom and do detours and still make appointments. If its a 6 hour drive from A to B, don't expect driver to do it in 5 1/2hours.  People inside the trucking office have time to eat, use bathroom and dispatch or whatever and take their breaks, but this is not allowed for the driver.
 

So I wonder, is it more of a punishment or an actual way to avoid future tickets?

I would definitely say it's a punishment because you're right, most trucks are governed too slow to get speeding tickets at maximum highway speeds. They're going to get tickets in slower speed zones. But companies know that your truck's maximum governed speed is incredibly important to the drivers so I believe it's more of a punishment than an actual attempt to keep you from getting speeding tickets by reducing your truck speed.

Wow, that's some interesting stuff. The safety director at my company also stated something to the effect of companies having you sign a waver in order to release all CSA2010 data to them before you are hired. That's what companies will be doing now, in addition to checking DAC reports, DMV records, criminal history, work history and in some cases, credit checks. Just one more area drivers need to cover themselves on.

I'm not sure I totally understand reducing the speed of a drivers truck if he or she gets a speeding ticket. What if the speeding ticket happens in a 25mph zone? Reducing the speed of their truck by 4mph will not help them do 25mph when that is the speed limit. So I wonder, is it more of a punishment or an actual way to avoid future tickets? I don't think most truckers are recieving speeding tickets in 65 or 70mph zones. It's usually speed limits of 55mph or less. So how would reducing the speed of the truck by 4mph really help? Of course, I don't have any hard data to back that up, but I think it's a good guess.