Social media does Swift no favours with stuff like: “What’s the difference between a Swift driver and a toilet?-A toilet can always back-up.” But it is a huge fleet with a noticeable livery so any mishap doesn’t go unnoticed. I don’t think their incident-to-truck ratio is any greater than average. My personnel dealings with Swift drivers leads me to believe they are mostly inexperienced and lack training in the finer points of truck-driver decision making and etiquette.
I once found myself parked next to a Swift driver with flat batteries; who was re-setting his driving hours and hadn’t started the truck for two days. He had bitten the bullet and bought some jump-cables. He asked nicely and I was happy to give him a boost. He was a nice guy who had just retired from the prison service after 30 years as a guard. He had a good pension but wanted to see the World so had got his Class 1 CDL. He was from UP Michigan, Swift are from Phoenix, Arizona, and we were in Houston, Texas. He hadn’t been home for 2 months since he started but was loving every minute of his new career. He admitted it was a very steep learning curve and was learning from his mistakes. He was grateful for my help and would have given me his home address, saying I should pop in for coffee, until he realized he was never at home any more. An older newcomer to the road transport industry and not untypical for Swift or anybody else.