[truckintom28]

From what I've heard the company driver at Prime isnt bad. Im sure once youve been out awhile your fleet manager will ask you if you'd like to become a lease operator, but they cant force you to do anything. You are your own decesion maker and can always say NO and continue on as a company driver. I myself am a lease operator for Prime and it isnt as bad as everyone thinks or says. Its just not for everyone. Its a business and should be treated as such. As far as that guy talking about that slc yard.. We purchased it from a bankrupt company so were in the process of cleaning up and remodeling the place. It was a real dump. Well at least now you have your answer to the question. Not some other random other answers.

[crankyazz]

and just out of curosity how long have you been a lease operator w prime? it would help other drivers to know how long you been doing it and if it has been successful for you.. btw bol with doing a lease.

[driver67373]

Just to address a few of the comments made here. The trainer instructed me to get my CDL for three weeks before I went into the training phase. We don't get paid whle we're getting out CDL but no one else does either. What is unique about Prime's (and a few others, Rohel comes to mine) CDL program is that it is all over the road, so that when you get your CDL, you already have driven 100 hours on the road, hauling real loads, while the instructor is in the right seat. So you are far more skilled and prepared than another guy who got his CDl at a school and hasn't driven one hour of over the road. So once I entered the training phase, I already knew how to drive the truck. It was during that phase that I fine-tuned all of my skills, worked on backing A LOT, how to deal with shippers and recievers, all the little stuff that goes with trucking, the details. And my trainer was always there to help me. He didn't immediately go to sleep when I was driving. He would sit in the other seat with me often, explain different things to me, teach me stuff. And often while he was driving I'd sit up there with him too when I wasn't asleep. I could wake him up anytime I had a question about something. He preferred it that way. He said some people are afraid to ask questions and I never was. He became more than my trainer, he became a mentor to me and my best friend. It was a great experience and I feel I was much better prepared once I went solo than someone who had just been in training for a few weeks. Someone mentioned they wouldn't want to sleep when someone was driving who had just gotten their CDL. I don't know how statistics do outside of Prime but Prime's statistics for last year only involved ONE student in training. The fact is those who have just went throuhg our CDL program are much more saftey conscious and less likely to cause a wreck. Those who have wrecks in our company have been there on average for two years. The reason is that once you've been driving for a while you start to develop bad habits, get complacent, etc where as a freshly trained student is not as likely to do that. So think twice before you say you woudldn't want to sleep with a fresh CDL behind the will. Just my 2 cents.

[century451]

Crankyazz.....you da man...... tell the rest of the newbies where they can make $1000 a week in training. Shoot I will go train at your company if the newbies get $1000 a week surely my pay will be twice that or 3 times for being the trainer.

[NevadaJim]

Originally Posted by crankyazz

driver67373 wrote:

oh and it's spelled guarantee

LMFAO dude How stupid can you get, you call maybe $600 a week good with the miles your listing??? If I was getting just 3000 miles a week my take home would be over a $1000 not gross. If you want to train for months and months and get raped repeatedly thats your choice.... I can't make the stupid see the light.. I can just add my two cents.

so take your wonderful training program and keep believing it.

Please tell where a rookie is making $1000 a week.

[Big Tex]

It isn't so much the training pay itself, its the length of time you have to take it. No company is going to pay a trainee $1000+ a week, but Prime makes you team "train" for 75,000 miles. The last 25,000 of which aren't even with a trainer, but another student.

The pay may be right up there with other training companies (Pumpkin, Swift, England, etc.) but they don't make you run team for peanuts for 7/8 months either.

I was interested in Prime too, but I'm going to take the advice of the drivers here and look at other options before I sign away a year to them.

[driver67373]

60,000 miles if you want to be a company driver. 80,000 if you want to lease. After three months solo as a company driver you have the option of getting a lease. At no point does Prime team you with another student. Maybe that did that in the past, but they no longer practice that. Again I do caution anyone against going into the lease who is a new driver and still learning all of the ropes. I did 80,000 so I could go straight into a lease, and my fleet manager even then said he thought I should stay company for a while. He tried to talk me out of a lease. So at no point has anyone at Prime forced me to go into a lease, contrary to what a lot of people claim about Prime. I wish I had have listened to my fleet manager, and went company. I'm not making any money in the lease program...got off to a bad start, 4 days out and I break down for a week. And it's the slow time of the year. I'm still recovering from the breakdown. So I'm not looking to leave Prime because it's a bad company but simply because I don't believe Prime can help me achieve my financial goals. I could go company with Prime but with 6 months experience I can make a lot more than .34 a mile. That and I'm tired of being just a number at a warehouse. I'm ready for a change and looking forward to going flatbed.

Originally Posted by Big Tex

It isn't so much the training pay itself, its the length of
time you have to take it. No company is going to pay a trainee $1000+ a week, but Prime makes you team "train" for 75,000 miles. The last 25,000 of which aren't even with a trainer, but another student.

The pay may be right up there with other training companies (Pumpkin, Swift, England, etc.) but they don't make you run team for peanuts for 7/8 months either.

I was interested in Prime too, but I'm going to take the advice of the drivers here and look at other options before I sign away a year to them.

[scythe08]

I think Crankyazz meant gross $1000. I was making .355 cpm when I left.
3000 X .355 = $1065 X .68(32% tax bracket, based on being single in utah with 0 exemptions)= $724.20

Could be off alittle, based this off my own dedicated run that I had while I was knight.
2587 X .355 = $918.385 X .68 = $624.50

This was a personal best so far for me, but I've just started LTL and hope to beat that. Only been driving 3 years so far.

[crankyazz]

what i meant, by the time you have done 60,000 miles you could have already gotten on with a company and be making decent cpm.... and yes i didnt make that much until i had 4 months otr experience. alot of training companies only train for 4 to 6 weeks... which would only be about 18,000 miles factoring that you drove 3,000 miles a week. why stick around til you get 60,000 making either $500 per week or 10 cpm.. sounds like your getting screwed... my two cents.

[PaleRider]

Originally Posted by Uturn2001

All I can tell you about Prime is that they will push, pressure, lie, cheat, steal, and anything and everything they can think of to sucker you into a lease rip off deal.

Not to mention that there are XTRMLY few companies out there with worse equipment. Maybe they;re well maintained, but, I have never seen a NEW Prime truck unless it was an O/O's. Usually what I see onn the road for Prime is '00-'02 Centuries that look llike they've been rode hard and put up wet.