Does Prime still make you run Canada?

Yep, unless you disclose what and any offenses on your record that the Canadian authorities can use to deny you entry.

Even if you dont disclose, Prime will find out real quick when you get turned away at the border.

 

Not knockin anyone who currently drives for prime or anything. I havent posted much but I read these forums a lot. see u2 and iron pony speakin up quite often. neway got my cdl and training thru prime and will always be thankful to them for that but wouldn't recco any experienced drivers go there, especially if u like to pull flatbed. prolly better off goin with a flatbed carrier like maverick, melton or tmc to name the biggies that I know of. The lease thing at prime is a rip off, especially with freight rates being down and the high fixed costs involved. they make a lot of money off of the drivers who do it. company drivers have to maintain a 6.75 mpg fuel average which is absured considering u will be hauling heavy loads most of the time in reefer. Your truck may only go 62 or whatever it is but trust me, if u need to make those numbers ur gonna be goin a lot slower than that. Prime is one of the only carriers I consistently pass, lease or company, dont matter. I dunno much bout flatbed. now I hear theyre goin to stripped down no room sleeper tractors to cut weight so they can get a leg up in this shippers market. no thanx there. bet theyd get cabovers if they were still around. again im not tryin to knock on drivers for em, wanna make that clear cuz thats what a lot of ppl do here. we're all out here cuz we need a paycheck. I wouldnt go to prime tho if u can avoid it

 

By the way, what happened to primedrivers.net? used to be there, a lot of the guys who drove for prime would talk to each other on that message board

 

I work on the reefer side, so I can't comment. But... a friend I met at orientation went flatbed and lease - he seems like he's doing ok. Making money, getting loads.

Ok, first, I'm driving an '07 Century so its a little harder to get good fuel mileage than with one of the newer trucks. That being said, its mostly about slowing down and paying attention to the little things that gets you above the 6.75 bar. I regularily turn in around the 7.3 mpg point, and I'll point out that poorly-loaded trailers and bad weather sometimes keeps me down. A light load for me is 60-something GVW, and I'm usually close to 80,000.

Second, its not absurd. If you can't control your costs in a time of marginalized revenue, how is a company (or small businessman aka independent contractor) going to stay in business, let alone have enough after fixed costs to pay himself? Thousands of trucking businesses including large ones have gone out of business - many citing an inability to control costs and high fuel prices. So is 6.75 mpg absurd? I don't think so. Is it achievable? Yes, but you have to work at it. Maybe it just means you have to be a better driver than your average throttle-masher.

So where then? Swift? CRE? PAM? I'd say (based on notarps incessant whining about Prime) that Mercer and Maverick are options for a flatbedder, but I know a lot of guys who are real happy pulling flatbeds for Prime. As far as I'm concerned Prime is great as far as reefer ops are concerned. Not looking forward to a tiny tractor, but it IS getting us loads. I'm rarely sitting, the company has actually expanded the number of tractors its running this year, and we are getting more business - including doing regional stuff for the first time. We're getting increased market share at SOMEONE'S expense. So say what you will, but increased business for the company means a better paycheck for me. And if 6.75mpg is holding our costs down enough that we are AGAIN replacing our trailer fleet with new equipment, then how is it that 6.75mpg is absurd? I think that means that its a business strategy that's working - for both the company and the driver.

Yup, lotsa biotchin' about how "Prime treated me bad" goes around, but even if they "just make me" get that 6.75 mpg, I'm still making quite a bit of money from them. A heckofa lot more than the loosers who advise to not expect to even make $30k gross your first year out. Besides, I'm getting PAID for that 6.75, and the better I can make it the MORE they pay me. Its not just a flat fuel bonus.

So as they say, different strokes for different folks. So far Prime is doing ok for me, and when it doesn't I'm outta here.

 

Last year was first full year with prime as company driver. $44,800. Good or Bad Should I step it up or is that ok.

 

Iron pony, you asked where else then. and listed swift, pam, and cre. I'm assuming that means cr england. All three of those are pretty dumpy places, everyone knows swift but cr england and p.a.m are 2 of the biggest bottom feeders around. that is a good point tho, there's prolly not a lot of great companys to choose from. That being said tho I am a company driver at Crete, only my third week here but can already tell it is a good company to work for. My only other experience was at prime fleece so this is my first company gig but i'm bettin its better than most. first, the pay is above industry average, prolly by a good amount. i've looked around at company's websites for their pay chart and a lot of em aren't paying squat. The trucks used to be 65 mph, but they turned them down to 62 in 08 or 09. that being said tho, u can set the cruise at 62 all day long and not worry if ur only gettin 5.6 mpg that day, cuz it doesn't matter. There are no fuel numbers games to play. I pull a crete trailer but if u like reefer, which I don't, u can prolly pull a shaffer trailer too, depending on where u live. Do a lot of drop and hook and don't sit around, i've stayed busy here so far. also when u send in ur loaded call on the qc, thats all u have to do. not call in and wait on hold for the live loaded call associate or bug ur fleet manager to treat u like a 5 year old and go over all the details of the bills again lol. im sorry I really hated doin those live loaded calls. Can't give exact numbers but I def know crete has one of the lower turnover rates amongst the larger carriers, and I can already see why. Just my 2 cents tho. Prime is still prolly better than a lot of outfits, but u can do better if ur not happy there. A lot of the drivers they hire are new students, which is fine, thats how I got my training and it sure beat payin for school, but I think the whole lease thing and students tie together in a way. yes u can go company driver but still. cr england, trans am, central reefer, and stevens all do the same thing. students and lease programs, and theyre all reefer companies. I personally like workin somewhere where most of the fleet is company drivers, and whoever else is owner ops. no leasing crap to even consider

 

It's really all subjective Gmoney. I bet you I can find plenty of complaints about Crete on this board with ease. It would be just as easy for me to say "if you don't like Crete, you can do better. Try Prime!" If you're happy, so be it. I'm not going to hop on the Crete boards and talk about how terrible they are because of one or two drivers I met that told me some of the shady things they do. Always two sides to every story.

The fact of the matter is, most people who bash Prime don't ever offer any viable alternative. All of the major players are about the same. If it's not MPG restrictions, it's idle restrictions (we have APU's). Maybe you get good miles, but the pay is lower. There is always a trade off and the grass is not always greener. Usually it takes more than 3 weeks to find that out.

Nearly everyone has to start with one of the large carriers. I started at Prime about a year ago and am extremely happy with the way they have treated me. I've been running good miles, have made decent money, and while my last truck ended up giving me more problems than I'd have liked, they ended up giving me a new one early because of it. Would all large companies have handled that the same way?

As far as MPG, yeah, it's not a pleasant aspect of the job. But let's face it, the number one cost for a trucking company besides the driver is fuel. This is a controllable cost. The economy sucks, so why not try and control those costs the best we can? I guess over at Prime, we all sort of feel like a team. The more we keep the company costs down, the more competitive we can be, the more accounts we will gain, and the more my wallet gets filled up each week. The company tells me where we need to cut down on costs, and I comply. It's really not that hard. Would I like to mash the throttle and cruise around at 70mph? Of course! But while I drive their truck and while they pay for the fuel costs (I'm a company driver), I'm happy to comply with their requests. Besides the fact that slowing down has cause our safety numbers to go through the roof. 2009 was our safest year on record. Even more cost cutting benefits there.

Live loaded calls have improved. I rarely have to wait on hold anymore. If I wait more than 15 minutes and feel like I'm in the way, I send a message into dispatch informing them I'm leaving and will call them the first time I stop for live load. The response has always been "10/4." But that's only happened maybe 2 or 3 times in the last year. Being treated like a 5 year old? Not sure what you mean here. The fact is, the number of cargo claims filed against Prime since they started live load calls has plummeted. Most of my live load calls are over within 2 minutes from the time I hit "dial" to the time I hit "end." Taking two minutes out of my day to double check the bills is not a big deal. A very petty complaint in my mind.

The new big thing at Prime is keeping a good trailer seal record and having all seals signed for. Are we to complain about that too? It will reduce the number of claims filed against us. Why fight it? Does it make my job slightly more difficult? I suppose. But it's not hard to keep a good seal record and if it saves my butt and Prime's butt from a bad claim, than I'll do it. I could easily complain about it...but I won't.

It was your choice to lease. Nearly all of the complaints I see on the boards and elsewhere are from current or former lease drivers. Nobody forced you into leasing. I've never been pressured to lease. Some other companies out there will actually pressure their drivers into it via phone calls and such. I've never received one call, one letter, one comment, or anything else from anyone at Prime about switching to a lease deal. The only ones who seem to try and convince me are lease drivers themselves. Prime offers the option. If you want to take them up on that option so be it. They give you the opportunity to succeed or fail in your business venture. If you don't want to deal with running a business and just want to drive one of their trucks, than be a company driver.

In the end, people always want to know..."what's in it for me?" Yeah, we make some sacrifices here at Prime. So what is in it for the driver? Well, during this crap economy, our business has continued to grow. We are adding new customers all the time and expanding our customers with current customers as well. We were carrier of the year for a few big ones last year, and we just landed a couple regional accounts with a HUGE customer. First time that's happened and I think there is more to come. I have not seen any such "slow season" AT ALL this year. I've been running as hard as I can handle. Soon as I'm unloaded, my dispatcher wants to know when I can roll again. I don't follow other companies all that closely, but I don't think most companies have seen the GROWTH that Prime has in the last year or two. Who's to thank for that growth? Well, everyone, but mainly the drivers here at Prime, and they constantly make that known during the weekly driver meetings, on the Prime driver CD's, and on the hold messages. As long as they keep business coming my way and help me make more money, I have no problem making the minor sacrifices they ask.

I'd recommend Prime to nearly anyone looking to start out in the trucking business. I'd recommend Prime to my closest friends and family, even. I'm happy here, and while I know I can probably find an opportunity elsewhere, Prime has yet to give me any reason to consider leaving.

So the next time you blow my doors off in your 62mph Crete truck, I'll give you a friendly smile and a wave knowing we are both happy with our employer.

Stay safe, driver.

 

Nice post there driver. Im kinda new to posting my own thoughts but it's good to see civilized conversation amongst people. usually it's just people bashing eash other with no constructive criticism and what not. I remember back before the prime drivers forum site switched over, and maybe its still there, there was this guy mike varnco I think. Started out at prime and sounded like he had a real salty taste in his mouth. would bash everyone and not offer anything positive. Said he worked for some company called timken. they made bearings and stuff like that. prolly had a real small fleet of trucks. Probably knew somebody there who got him in or just got lucky when they had ONE position open most likely. Its like ok good for you, are they hiring anybody??? lol. I don't hold any grudges on prime, they gave me a start and I had a great instructor and trainer there who I still chat with, also my fleet manager was a good guy too. When I did my A seat upgrade june of 08 freight was really moving and the rates were solid. I saw what kind of money my trainer was making and decided to do the lease.


It was great and all and I made a lot of money until bout december of that year, then it kinda slowed down but everybody was hurtin at that time and for awhile after. In may my mom passed away, took a couple weeks off. and I had some breakdowns that were costly over the summer. Just kinda got generally unhappy with the way things were goin and being on the road all the time. So terminated my lease and went home. got a local job couple months later but got laid off. sucked anyway a lot of lifting. certified driver lumper lol. decided I needed to come back out on the road with a fresh positive attitude and hopefully a good carrier.


Had kinda a feeling crete might be good and I looked around this site too and didn't really find much beef on them from drivers. So I applied and got in. They sent me with a trainer for 10 days, ended up being 8 cuz I knew how to drive already. Worked out for the best tho, its one on one training like the instructors do at prime and my trainer was an awesome dude. got a chance to learn all the paperwork stuff and what not here. He's been there 12 years so even tho i'm new and all. I atleast got some valuable insight from a guy thats been there a long time what the company is all about in his eyes.

What regional accounts did prime land over there? thats one thing I thought they lacked a lil is that they didnt have much dedicated or regional stuff