Complaint Review: Sunstate Carriers - Tavares Florida

I have been working for Sunstate Carriers well over 1 year now; approximately 18 months now, and there has never been a single time anybody asked me to run a load illegally.

When I read this HOS violation report now, I was furious. Because

1) It's not smart of the driver to yield to any dispachers treat to run over his legal HOS.

2) He is jeopardising both his life, and others' on the road, not to talk of his carrier

3) There has been several times that I was running late on a load, and logistics will call the consignee to reschedule delivery.

4) I've been asked a couple of times to re-power late loads due to the drivers running out of time to drive.

The company, Sunstate, will not even allow you to drive the 30 minutes, diving off duty, window if you are on a load.

Moreover, the safety manager DOES NOT even tolerate this at all. He will pull you into the terminal in a blink of an eye, and that might lead to that driver's dismisal.

Maybe this is the case of this driver that wrote this.

All it takes is to look up Sunstatecarriers DOT safety score to find out that we are a safe company.  We have one of the safest scores in the industry.  Our Inspection Selection System Rating is 28.  This translate by the DOT standards as to "Pass" on inspecting because they are a safe carrier.

Jerry is correct in his comments in that running over on hour limits is ignored by dispatch to avoid having to rebook freight to meet unrealistic deadlines. The company will accept a driver driving all night with no sleep or rest period so long as its not recorded on the driver logs and nothing happens to the driver or equipment, since there isn't a quaalcom or tracking system installed in the equipment. However, if the freight is late or the driver is involved in a mishap and the logs are inspected, the safety department will deny any knowledge of it and hang the driver out to dry, even though the dispatch and safety departments are right next to each other and they communicate with each other constantly. It's a very small office so NOTHING a driver does stays undisclosed longer than 24 hours. Also, it's not uncommon for the driver spvr. to argue over the phone with a driver concerning a day-off request well in advance of their 70 hr work week. So long as a driver stays in the truck, they will continue to be dispatched no matter if they're out of hours or not. Complaining about it or trying to run legal doesn't help. Getting at least a 24 hrs rest period at home after 14 days is almost impossible without literally parking the truck in the yard and leaving it there. The driver is considered under dispatch "until released with pre-approval by the drvr. spvr." Working for this outfit is like indentured servitude. The only way to get out is to quit out-right. A terrible company to work for. That's why they advertise in the paper 7 days a week. Stay away from them....bad news. There it is.

Jerry is correct in his comments in that running over on hour limits is ignored by dispatch to avoid having to rebook freight to meet unrealistic deadlines. The company will accept a driver driving all night with no sleep or rest period so long as its not recorded on the driver logs and nothing happens to the driver or equipment, since there isn't a quaalcom or tracking system installed in the equipment. However, if the freight is late or the driver is involved in a mishap and the logs are inspected, the safety department will deny any knowledge of it and hang the driver out to dry, even though the dispatch and safety departments are right next to each other and they communicate with each other constantly. It's a very small office so NOTHING a driver does stays undisclosed longer than 24 hours. Also, it's not uncommon for the driver spvr. to argue over the phone with a driver concerning a day-off request well in advance of their 70 hr work week. So long as a driver stays in the truck, they will continue to be dispatched no matter if they're out of hours or not. Complaining about it or trying to run legal doesn't help. Getting at least a 24 hrs rest period at home after 14 days is almost impossible without literally parking the truck in the yard and leaving it there. The driver is considered under dispatch "until released with pre-approval by the drvr. spvr." Working for this outfit is like indentured servitude. The only way to get out is to quit out-right. A terrible company to work for. That's why they advertise in the paper 7 days a week. Stay away from them....bad news. There it is.

Jerry is correct in his comments in that running over on hour limits is ignored by dispatch to avoid having to rebook freight to meet unrealistic deadlines. The company will accept a driver driving all night with no sleep or rest period so long as its not recorded on the driver logs and nothing happens to the driver or equipment, since there isn't a quaalcom or tracking system installed in the equipment. However, if the freight is late or the driver is involved in a mishap and the logs are inspected, the safety department will deny any knowledge of it and hang the driver out to dry, even though the dispatch and safety departments are right next to each other and they communicate with each other constantly. It's a very small office so NOTHING a driver does stays undisclosed longer than 24 hours. Also, it's not uncommon for the driver spvr. to argue over the phone with a driver concerning a day-off request well in advance of their 70 hr work week. So long as a driver stays in the truck, they will continue to be dispatched no matter if they're out of hours or not. Complaining about it or trying to run legal doesn't help. Getting at least a 24 hrs rest period at home after 14 days is almost impossible without literally parking the truck in the yard and leaving it there. The driver is considered under dispatch "until released with pre-approval by the drvr. spvr." Working for this outfit is like indentured servitude. The only way to get out is to quit out-right. A terrible company to work for. That's why they advertise in the paper 7 days a week. Stay away from them....bad news. There it is.

Jerry is correct in his comments in that running over on hour limits is ignored by dispatch to avoid having to rebook freight to meet unrealistic deadlines. The company will accept a driver driving all night with no sleep or rest period so long as its not recorded on the driver logs and nothing happens to the driver or equipment, since there isn't a quaalcom or tracking system installed in the equipment. However, if the freight is late or the driver is involved in a mishap and the logs are inspected, the safety department will deny any knowledge of it and hang the driver out to dry, even though the dispatch and safety departments are right next to each other and they communicate with each other constantly. It's a very small office so NOTHING a driver does stays undisclosed longer than 24 hours. Also, it's not uncommon for the driver spvr. to argue over the phone with a driver concerning a day-off request well in advance of their 70 hr work week. So long as a driver stays in the truck, they will continue to be dispatched no matter if they're out of hours or not. Complaining about it or trying to run legal doesn't help. Getting at least a 24 hrs rest period at home after 14 days is almost impossible without literally parking the truck in the yard and leaving it there. The driver is considered under dispatch "until released with pre-approval by the drvr. spvr." Working for this outfit is like indentured servitude. The only way to get out is to quit out-right. A terrible company to work for. That's why they advertise in the paper 7 days a week. Stay away from them....bad news. There it is.