Tyson Foods Truck Driver Reviews: SAFER File, Reefer

A Tyson Foods seat is not a 48-state dry-van board and not a nightly beverage route. Careers copy sells a private fleet: refrigerated trailers between plants, DCs, and customers. The work on the postings is solo CDL-A with no-touch freight and a SAFER file that actually lists under Tyson Foods Inc in Springdale — unlike Pepsi’s scatter of bottlers. Look up USDOT 3327 before you treat a plant job board as Costco depot work or a Sysco hand-unload.

Pay, home time, and online ratings move by terminal. Verify current figures with Tyson recruiting, on Indeed, and on the FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot. Rules change. Verify current requirements at fmcsa.dot.gov before you act on anything in this guide.

Tyson Foods safety record: what FMCSA data shows

Start with the federal file. People searching “Tyson SAFER” or “Tyson DOT number” need the Springdale motor carrier, not a person named Tyson and not a Brooklyn lookalike. On the Company Snapshot pulled for this article, USDOT 3327 is Tyson Foods Inc, DBA Tyson, at 2200 W Don Tyson Parkway, Springdale, AR 72762, phone (479) 290-4000. Mailing address: PO Box 2020, Springdale, AR 72764. Entity type: carrier / shipper / broker. USDOT status: ACTIVE. Out-of-service date: none. Authority: authorized as a motor carrier of property (except household goods) and a broker of property (except household goods) under MC-145655. Operation classification on that card is both authorized for-hire and private (property), interstate. If a recruiter or job board hands you a different number, stop.

The same snapshot — FMCSA systems dated 09/10/2026 — lists 3,475 power units, 2,386 non-CMV units, and 3,136 drivers. MCS-150 mileage is 208,965,392 for 2025, form date 11/07/2025. Cargo checkboxes include drive/tow away, machinery, fresh produce, liquids/gases, intermodal containers, livestock, grain/feed/hay, chemicals, refrigerated food, agricultural/farm supplies, and offal. The meat box is not checked on that card. Read refrigerated food and livestock as printed, not as a slogan.

U.S. roadside inspections, 24 months before 09/10/2026: 3,013 total. Vehicle 1,630 inspections, 237 out of service (14.5%). Driver 3,008 inspections, 22 out of service (0.7%). Hazmat 6 inspections, 0 out of service (0%). National averages printed on that snapshot (table dated 08/28/2026) are 22.26% vehicle, 6.67% driver, 4.44% hazmat. Vehicle and driver OOS both sit under the printed averages. Hazmat is a tiny sample — do not treat a 0% line as a fleet grade.

U.S. crashes, same window: 16 fatal, 73 injury, 131 tow, 220 total. FMCSA counts involvement in reportable crashes without a determination of responsibility. A fleet this size will show volume. Read the current card yourself.

Canada on the same snapshot: 0 inspections and 0 crashes in 24 months. Do not invent a Canadian average.

Safety rating: Satisfactory. Rating date 10/15/2002. Review date 08/16/2001, typed Compliance Review. That stamp is more than two decades old. It is not a 2026 audit. Walk the fields with our SAFER score company lookup.

A SAFER name search for “Tyson Foods” also returned Tyson Foods Trading Inc (Brooklyn, NY, USDOT 4260977): 1 power unit, 1 driver, not authorized, 0 inspections, rating None. That is not the Springdale fleet. A raw “TYSON” search returns hundreds of unrelated names. Open SAFER by 3327 and confirm 2200 W Don Tyson Parkway.

Who a Tyson driver actually is

Tyson Foods is a protein company that runs company trucks between plants, warehouses, and customers (tysonfoods.com/careers). Headquarters is Springdale. Careers copy lists driving as a private fleet next to production and warehousing. The Class A seat this article covers is Tyson Transportation: tractor-trailer on refrigerated product, company facilities and DCs, solo OTR-length cycles.

That is the queue angle. Dedicated plant freight still keeps you out. It is not a Walmart depot rumor, not Costco hourly local, not Pepsi bay merchandising, not Sysco restaurant hand-unloads. Same private-fleet-ish genre as Walmart truck driver reviews, Costco truck driver reviews, Sysco truck driver reviews, and Pepsi truck driver reviews — different clock, different freight, one big USDOT.

The Taylorsville and Byron OTR posts: transport Tyson product to company facilities, DCs, and customers; keep the reefer at temperature; no-touch freight; drop pay; assigned trucks. Hiring bars on those posts: Class A, age 21+, about 9 months recent or 1 year verifiable tractor-trailer time in the last three years, DOT physical, drug screen including hair, road test, Tyson evaluation points, and company DUI / DOT-violation screens. Requirements change. Verify current hiring bars with the terminal that would actually dispatch you.

Do not mix Class A road seats with plant yard jobs. Indeed’s Tyson board also listed yard driver / RVI posts in Robards, Kentucky ($20.40), Texarkana (from $19.10), Pine Bluff freezer ($20.85), and Temperanceville, Virginia ($21.05–$22.10). Those are hourly plant-yard cards, not the OTR weekly range.

Do not confuse Tyson company drivers with a contractor hauling Tyson freight. If the W-2 says another legal name, you are not on USDOT 3327.

Pay: weekly OTR range, not a CPM card on the posting

Tyson’s public Class A listings paid a weekly range, plus a tenure-per-mile add-on. The figures below are from public posts when this article was researched. Rates change by terminal, tenure, miles, detention, and whether the seat is road or yard. Verify current pay for your role — weekly range, CPM add-on, drop pay, layover, a slow-week example, and whether the seat is company Tyson or a contractor — in writing.

• Taylorsville, North Carolina, OTR CDL-A (Indeed listing): $1,250–$2,000 a week. Solo. Home time listed as a schedule tag. Copy: no-touch, drop pay, assigned trucks, tenure incentive $0.01–$0.05 per mile, day-one medical, 401(k) after one year, safety bonuses. Apply path on the careers site: driver app / Tyson driving jobs.
• Byron, Georgia, and Centerville, Georgia (Indeed cards): the same $1,250–$2,000 weekly range and the same no-touch OTR copy.
• Yard / RVI posts (Indeed cards): $19.10–$22.10 an hour at plant lots. Do not average those into the Class A weekly floor.
• Indeed salary page for “Truck Driver” at Tyson Foods Incorporated: $19.55 an hour from six postings, last updated 06/12/2026, displayed low $9.75 / high $29.35, 23% below Indeed’s national truck-driver average. That cut mixes yard titles. Do not treat it as the OTR floor. Shuttle driver on the same salary cluster sat at $32.59 an hour (one line). Long-haul driver $66,657 a year (one line).
• TheTruckersReport salary box: $800–$1,923 per week (displayed average $1,339) on self-reported surveys: $1,250, $1,600, $1,385, $1,400 (Springdale) and $1,700 (Charlotte, 6–11 months CDL). Those are surveys, not the Byron posting.
• A Springdale Truck Driver title (02/24/2025) described school-to-Tyson training at $600 a week for 6 weeks, then $0.56 CPM, and take-home $1,200 or better at 2,500 miles. That is one attributed review, not the current package.

There is no public nationwide CPM card on the company OTR posts pulled here. The product is weekly range + miles + drops. If the plant is closed Sunday, the freezer is backed up, or the terminal is short on outbound, the check moves. A July 28, 2026 TTR current-employee note put layover at $200 for 24 hours on 12-hour increments. An April 28, 2026 TTR note said detention starts after 12 hours at $100. Verify current pay for your terminal.

What drivers actually say — including why people stay out or quit

Public review pages are not a verdict, and Tyson’s company-wide stars are not the fleet. Indeed’s Tyson Foods Incorporated page filtered to Truck Driver, updated 05/16/2026, listed 118 truck-driver write-ups. The 3.6 out of 5 headline on that scrape sat on 11,514 company-wide reviews — plants, offices, and warehouses mixed in. Do not quote 11,000 stars as driver sentiment. Indeed’s likes on the filtered page: a clear sense of purpose, meeting personal goals, ability to learn.

TheTruckersReport’s Tyson Foods page sat at 3.3 out of 5 on 36 reviews, with a displayed weekly range of $800–$1,923. Weigh recent titles at your terminal, not the protein logo.

The stay-or-quit split on driver-titled write-ups matches the queue note — this is dedicated plant freight that still keeps you on the road:

• Miles when they are there, assigned trucks, and home time you can plan are why people stay. Recurring notes: drop-and-hook, newer equipment, holiday pay, training out of school, dispatch that will run you if you will run. Titles include “Good company,” “Great company to work and highly recommended if you don’t mind staying out on the road 7 days or more,” “Good Pay/ Dedicated Routes,” “It’s ok great miles every week,” “Made bank here.” A Springdale Truck Driver title (04/19/2026) said loads were pretty easy, a lot of drop-and-hook, occasional live unloads, and they hated the in-truck safety features. A Charlotte-area TTR current-employee note (04/03/2026) described 24 days out / 4 days home, weeks rarely under 3,000 miles except weather.
• Freezer dwell, short miles at some terminals, cameras, and “we are not a trucking company” are why people leave or warn others. An April 28, 2026 TTR current-employee note said orientation called Tyson a food-delivery company — code for clock time at freezer warehouses — and called detention stingy. A July 30, 2026 TTR former-employee note praised pay and home time and still flagged safety culture and a good-ol-boy system. Indeed titles include “Managers and hr suck” (Union City, TN, maggots in trailers — one attributed rant, not a lab finding) and “Not positive” (Springdale OTR, 01/26/2025). A Springdale Class A title (05/16/2026) said dispatch lacked the professionalism they expected.
• Terminals are not interchangeable. Springdale, Pottsville, Indianapolis regional, East Texas 7-day local, and a Logansport yard seat are different clocks. Ask which board is hiring.

Drug tests: interstate CDL work is subject to DOT drug and alcohol testing; a refusal or verified positive is a federal issue, not a plant-policy rumor — see fmcsa.dot.gov. The Taylorsville and Byron posts listed a DOT physical and a drug screen including hair. Do not invent a Tyson-specific panel, wait time, or fail rate. Ask recruiting what they run after a conditional offer.

Who a Tyson seat fits — and how to vet it

Tyson tends to fit a CDL-A driver who will live near a Tyson terminal, accept reefer plant-to-plant and customer freight, and stay out in a sleeper for weekly pay — and who wants drop-and-hook more than merchandising. Yard and shuttle seats are a different body clock. Springdale, Byron, Taylorsville, Pottsville, and a Kentucky yard lot are not one job. Ask which legal name is on the truck.

Look elsewhere if you need home nightly, you will not sit at freezers, you want a 48-state dry-van board, or you will not re-open SAFER the week you would start. Compare other files in our trucking company reviews hub rather than picking a protein logo.

1. Confirm the legal name and USDOT. The door should match Tyson Foods Inc / 3327, not 4260977 and not a contractor.
2. Re-open the SAFER snapshot the week you would start. Authority, vehicle OOS, driver OOS, crashes, and the rating date. Use the SAFER lookup walkthrough.
3. Get pay in writing. Weekly range vs CPM add-on, drop pay, layover, detention clock, a 2,500-mile week versus a plant-closed Sunday, and whether the seat is road or yard.
4. Name the work. Plant-to-plant reefer with no-touch drops is not Pepsi merchandising and not a mega-carrier 48-state board. Ask average days out.
5. Cross-check people, not just the brand. Indeed’s truck-driver filter, TTR’s 36 reviews, and a carrier search on cdlscan. cdlscan is two-sided — carriers review drivers, and you can research the house — and search does not require buying a full report. It will not replace SAFER or the offer letter.

If you have already run for Tyson Foods Inc, add a review on cdlscan so the next applicant is not guessing from a protein careers page. Search is free; a full report is paid. Neither one replaces looking up USDOT 3327.

Frequently asked questions

Is Tyson Foods a good company to drive for?

It depends whether you want plant-to-plant reefer, weekly pay, and sleeper time — and whether that terminal actually has miles. USDOT 3327 shows active authority, a 2002 Satisfactory rating, and vehicle out-of-service under the national average printed on that snapshot. Indeed’s truck-driver filter is 118 write-ups, not the 11,000-review company score. Verify current pay and days out for your terminal.

What is Tyson Foods’ USDOT number?

The Springdale operating file is USDOT 3327, MC-145655, Tyson Foods Inc, DBA Tyson. USDOT 4260977 is a Brooklyn lookalike with one truck. Confirm the number on the door.

How much do Tyson Foods truck drivers make?

Public OTR Class A posts were $1,250–$2,000 a week in Taylorsville and Byron, plus a tenure CPM add-on. TTR’s box ran $800–$1,923 a week on surveys. Indeed’s truck-driver salary page averaged $19.55 an hour from six postings that mix yard titles. Rates change; get the current package in writing for your role.

Do Tyson drivers unload the truck?

The public OTR copy says no-touch freight and drop pay. Indeed still has occasional live-unload notes. Yard posts are a different job at the plant. Ask whether your lane is drop-and-hook or a live freezer.

Does Tyson hire new CDL drivers?

The OTR posts pulled here wanted about nine months recent or one year verifiable tractor-trailer time. A Springdale review described a school-to-Tyson training seat. That is not the same as walking into Byron as a brand-new CDL-A. Verify current hiring bars with the terminal.

Why do Tyson truck drivers quit?

Public titles cluster on freezer dwell, detention clocks, short miles at some terminals, in-cab safety tech, and management that talks food company first. Some drivers stay for miles, assigned trucks, and home time they can plan. It is not a court finding.

Does Tyson drug test truck drivers?

CDL interstate drivers are subject to DOT drug and alcohol testing. Taylorsville and Byron postings listed a DOT physical and a drug screen including hair. Ask recruiting what they require after a conditional offer. Do not invent a panel.

Is Tyson a private fleet?

Careers presents company trucks. SAFER still lists USDOT 3327 as authorized for-hire and private (property), plus broker authority under the same MC number. Read the card, not the marketing headline.

How do I look up Tyson on SAFER?

Search “Tyson” and you will get hundreds of unrelated names. Open FMCSA’s Company Snapshot for 3327 — Tyson Foods Inc, 2200 W Don Tyson Parkway, Springdale. Read authority, inspections, crashes, and the rating date.