Anthony
Rossville,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, October 30, 2008
...but sad to read that your dream is no longer alive. My one and only experience with US Xpress goes back quite a few years, but it gave me a glimpse into how they treat their associates, and to put it plainly...they suck. To make a long story short, I was leased to Hall Systems, Inc. - a company that they purchased in 1996. Just outside of Birmingham, and some six months working under their new management, I was traveling with another of their company drivers following me. We were both headed to the same place and had loaded at the same place. A line of traffic in front of me suddenly stopped, and the company driver behind me unfortunately did not. He plowed into the rear of my trailer at 35 mph. It was his second accident that year. They fired him immediately upon us entering the Birmingham yard. I felt very sorry for the driver, but understood why they let him go. The only damage done to my truck was a two inch dent in my grill, because he pushed me ever so slightly into the truck in front of me when he hit my rear end. It was all witnessed and attested to by others at the scene and by the local police department. I was not asking for a thing from the company in terms of repairs to my truck. It was not a new truck, and the damage was very minor. Their company truck was severely damaged. Understand that insurance laws are such that when two vehicles from the same trucking company are involved in the same accident, that no claim can be made. In other words, US Xpress had to pay for all the repairs out of pocket. What happened next, is why I ripped the decals off of my truck, and why I have never had nothing but contempt for that company since that day. The Safety Director hauled me into his office, and basically accused me of "setting up the accident" in order to get some money from them. I retorted by pointing out to the jerk the fact that I had already signed an agreement that my truck did not need any repairs and that I was exonerating the company completely from that point on for anything I might incur as a result of the accident. His response was to offer that it "didn't work out like I had hoped, had it?" I looked at him, and then walked out and removed all their identification and permitting from my truck. I was so incensed that I ruined the paint on my doors doing it. I was home three hours later, and glad to be done with them forever. When I did leave, I made it clear to Mr. Personality in the safety office that if they so much as attempted to refer to the accident on my DAC report, given the facts that were on the police report that I would be getting a copy of, and the witnesses that I had on record and that were merely a phone call away, that my Attorney and I would own a good piece of them. He apparently took me at my word. That accident never appeared on my DAC report, and they gave me a satisfactory reference afterward for the next seven years. Reading a few reports on this site has shown to me that not much has changed with that company, and even though they are based in my back yard, I wouldn't give them the time of day, if I were destitute, hungry, and without hope.