I have two friends at Central. One went in as company man and was "persuaded" to lease shortly after, and the other went in as a lease op. Now they are both being "persuaded" to be trainers. Their web site even talks about that being your career path there.

Neither one wants to train and are sick of the pressure. Otherwise they both love everything else about the company and are making good money. (One hasn't see under 3200 miles a week in over 2 months)

I don't know about the reefer side (I'm going tanker myself) but if you don't have a desire to be "forced" to train, I'd go with Prime.

This is an extremely dangerous business. I really get tired of almost being killed by people who think they are drivers after 6 weeks.

Best advice... get all the training you can before a company throws you into the deep end.

I have decided to go with the more training. I am sure that you can do all of the things that are needed when the sun is shining and you have plenty of time to think about it.
I was a Navy SEAL. We had lots and lots of hard training. When you are in a life and death situation, you do not have time to think. You have to react because it is second nature. Do I want to live with another guy in a box for 5 months...no...Do I want to be a good safe driver and be prepared when I only have a split second to decide what to do...yes!
Thanks for all of your input!

God Bless!

Jim

I agree 100%.

I took the written tests today and passed. I also got all of my endorsements. I need to have the background test for the haz mat.
There was a older gentleman from the far east taking a test next to me. He kept talking in a strange language all the time I was taking my test. He failed and then had a very loud discussion with the person from the state. It was very distracting, but I managed to get through it.
I felt sorry for him, but that is the way it goes!
Glad that is out of the way!

now as you read all the post you will hear a lot of bad about lease purchasing a truck most of it bad, you will also hear a lot say don't buy a truck unless you have 10 or 20 thousand dolors in the bank which that in itself is nonsense so I'm going to give my opinion since Ive done both, the lease purchase thing and Ive bought my own trucks and i didn't have thousands of dolors to do either one and Ive been out here OVER 45 yrs and i ain't about to quit now.

first of all in todays market you can take 5000.00 cash and buy a pretty nice tractor and pay cash for it and its yours , and as a matter of fact you can put it to work and make money no problem. with no debt. it might not shine a bright as a new one but you wont have a 1800 month payment either.

now as far as a lease purchase is concerned it is true it is not good business that much is obvious, however when you want a truck BAD and you don't have the cash or the credit you find there is no one out there tat is willing to help you all you will find is those that will tell you a million reasons why you cant do it or why they cant help you.

in this country when your down no one will help you up but they sure will try to keep you down and very few exceptions.

BUT you can find a company that will give you a lease purchase deal, you can run that lease purchase till you put together enough money to buy a truck, IT IS a pain in the but , and no there not going to let you take that truck where ever you want you have to stay with them, after all there not your momma there not going to let you run off with that 80.000 dolor truck , that ain't likely to happen, BUT you can keep it with them and run it, and you will make a little money doing it and if you stick it out you will wind up with a truck, now you have to run hard to do it but you can do it .

now i don't mean to imply that a lease purchase is going to be a piece of cake , it is not BUT it will be your truck as long as your with the company and it will be pretty close to a new truck and its yours to run every day and that is exactly what you have to do f you can keep the pace you will wind up with your own truck if your lazy it wont happen if you want to go home every week it wont happen and that is where most have the problem they wont to go home every week, well while your home your payments just keep on coming by the time you go back to work your behind well sorry it just doesn't work that way, the company will always put the company first.

now as i said is it a good business venture , NO IT IS NOT but if you want a truck it is a way to get it IF you can keep the pace.

all the racket you hear about a lease purchase is from people that haven't a clue or those that couldn't keep the pace , well thats not the company's fault because you cant run hard enough. but you do need to no that is what you have to do to make it work . if you can do it when its over you will have something to show for it..

now bear in mind I'm not saying by any means that all leases are good , they are not there some pretty bad ones out there so you have to do some research and take a good one but they aren't all bad.

i got lucky i went with prime and in two year's quit took a cab to peterbilt and payed cash for a good used Pete and was on my way and that was 20 years ago. there not all bad and prime treat you like a human being not a piece of dirt like most of these good company's do.

something to think about if your considering your own truck with no money and no credit , it worked well for me .

best of luck to all.---southernpride