Prime, any other drivers out there? Need advice badly.

[shadowsknight]

Seriously though. I've heard that if you run hard and run it as a business and not like a company driver then you can make money.
Froggy is in Central PA. 1)There's always Shaffer. 2)Isn't Prime still running Hershey's candy to the west coast? It should be a great round trip. Candy out and produce back. I use to do it with Lisa Motor Lines.

[Uturn2001]

We are done. After we deliver on Monday, we are going home and cleaning out the truck and taking it back. Prime is a joke. Anyone who reads this and is considering Prime, please don't!! I have come to the conclusion that the drivers who said that they were making money run illegal alot.

I am sure they have some drivers who are able to run legal and make some money. If they didn't then they would not have anyone they could parade around trying to convince others to sign on the dotted line.

If you really watch their ads though you will notice that most of the drivers they feature that are making "big" money there with the L/P are the husband and wife teams.

Makes sense. Takes one drivers income to pay for the truck and the second driver's income is what they live off of. :P

[century451]

If I read your posts right you say your boyfriend keeps refusing loads because he cant run them leagal? That sounds like a problem with trip planning, If it is indeed the case a conversation with Mr. Low or the folks in safety will fix that problem. All those load refusals may be the cause of those $50 paychecks. Everyone at prime makes their paycheck off of how successful you are. You dont make money, they dont make money. Your boyfriends needed to fix the problem when it started to be a problem instead of letting it get this far and quiting with your pockets empty.

[shortround]

century451 you are right we still haul out of hershey in pa plus we have alot of otheir places jevic in nj/railtex in ny/ice cream loads in vt and ma.plus fedex in ma/ny. i have had loads that run tight and ive been offered loads that i couldnt make in time but dont always refuse them before you accept illegale load call in and tell them willing to take load but need more time and why. alot of times sales will call customer and move appt time so it can be done legal.also when your done talking to who ever send a message on qualcom so as to cya now its ok to accept load and no one can say you ran illegal or you were late.the otheir guy on here is also somewhat right you must be willing to run it as your own company and should be ready to run hard as loads usaully dont have alot of room on them.but on the up side i dont sit very long before im under a new load making dollars.i do run as a solo i have my son on board with me but he doesnt drive yet to young only 20 but we run hard and we run legal but most of all we run safely. we run this trk as our company and we refuse to fail do to someone else making dessions for us.also even though we are lease operators log dept has no problem letting us know about log vilations as a matter of fact they are very much on the ball and they dont play well with otheirs xspecial that red head . you screw up the log book they make your life misrable .

[BMiller]

A few years back I spent 6 hours on the Prime yard in Springfield,MO just looking over there lease program and making calls to some professional advisors. It was obvious pretty quickly that their program is heavily weighted in their favor, and you could very quickly find yourself in financial trouble if you take time off or are given lousy loads. The lease completion incentive they promote is nothing more than giving the unused money from your maintenance account back to you. It is money you have already earned. The company went through bankruptcy years back, and OOIDA went after them in court recently. A lifetime member of the bottom feeding club. I dont mince words. It would be a foolish risk to work for them.

Remember, no trucking company exists for charitable reasons. Their first priority is making money. On the surface there is nothing wrong with this. But it would be wise to keep this in mind when dealing with trucking companies. Believe NOTHING til you see it in writing. If you cant understand something find somebody who does. I would not trust a driver recruiter if it was my own mother.

Some trucking companies count on a steady supply of stupid truck drivers. Again, I dont mince words. Personally, I try not to be stupid.

[Uturn2001]

Their first priority is making money. On the surface there is nothing wrong with this.

Not a thing wrong with making money in an of itself. It is the how a company or person goes about it that makes it wrong. When someone makes money in a predatory manner, as many of these companies who offer a L/P do then that is when it becomes wrong.

The really sad thing is that most companies do not realize that they could make a lot more money if they treated their employees as partners instead of warm bodies to use and abuse.

[stealthylyon]

There's alot of good information in this thread though you sort of have to read between the lines to catch the drift. I think every large trucking company shares the same kind of give and take dysfunction that is described and reiterated here. It is up to the driver of the truck to steer his/her way through the miscommunication of bad loads, not enough time etc.

Get on the phone or QC with your fleet mgr and work the kinks out when they are happening, not 5000 miles down the pike.How are they supposed to know if you don't tell them ?

Prime recently acquired TRL ` From sea to shining sea' and is under immense pressure to smoothly assimilate TRL drivers and equipment into the Prime system and fuel ecomomy mindset which is no easy task .
TRL drivers are used to having a top speed of 75 so there's a bit of frustration being voiced at NE truckstops in that regard.

In my opinion, if you get your loads delivered on time and are willing to
stay out for 1-2 months the law of averages will grace your settlements.

[century451]

I heard Prime just bought a trucking company in Oklahoma and another in Ohio as well....Any truth to those rumors?

[drzebra]

Prime bought Passmore (flatbed company in Oklahoma) several months ago. Prime also bought TRL, based in Pittston, PA.

[Uturn2001]

Prime bought Passmore (flatbed company in Oklahoma) several months ago. Prime also bought TRL, based in Pittston, PA.

Not sure if that would be considered an improvement with TRL or just a lateral move. :wink:

[drzebra]

Seriously, are you capable of not being a complete jackass? Did your mommy not hug you enough when you were little so now you have to try to make everyone else as miserable as you are?

[just_froggy]

Ok, I haven't been on for a week or two. The truck is cleaned out and back in Springfield. We haven't gotten anything nasty in the mail, yet. I'm waiting though.

Shortround, you mentioned about calling in and asking for more time and such. He did that all the time, most of the trips he had to. Sometimes they were able to work with him, sometimes not. He would take the loads sometime, but only if it was no more than an hour out of the 11. There were times that we had just dropped off a load, just about or out of hours, and they would give him his next load. It needed to be picked up right away and ran straight to where it was being shipped to. Uh, hello?? When does he get to sleep? When does he get to reset his 11/14? Are you going to pay his fines for being illegal?

Some may thing we are being total sissies about this whole thing, but you are not the ones who have to pay the fines. He tried to work with his fleet manager, but he was worthless. My fiance would call in and sometimes have to wait 1/2 to 45 minutes to get the fleet manager on the phone, or even night and weekend dispatch. That's wasted time. It wasn't all our fault. Some, but not all.

[stealthylyon]

The PRIME take over of TRL includes most or all of it's customer base .It will take some time to digest the magnitude of the expansion.From what I've heard the buck stops there , at least until it's cost effective to morph on another .

The transition is causing quite a ruckus in the north east. You've got Prime drivers with TRL trailers, TRL drivers in TRL cabs pulling Primes..

Not all the TRL drivers are jumping for joy right now. Dedicated routers
being sent to distant locations far from family etc...Some may not convert to the Prime method...