Prime buys A. Passmore and Sons

my recruiter sucked... could never get a hold of him or get him to call me back... he even booked me on a bus to MA instead of MO... it was Prime drivers who answered my questions and helped me straighten out the bus thing.

ACE 2... is a class after a Lease driver has been out for a couple weeks, where their settlements are analyzed... line by line... to help them understand where they are profitable and where they are losing money (not locations) where they can improve and what they can do.

I think I do well because I communicate well... I dont cause problems... and put myself in positions that make it easy on my fleet manager... i communicate what I can do and what I cant ... and early to help my FM... he has enough to deal with... drivers who are late, cant get their MPG down, and are shut down for DOT violations...

these FM are paid by driver's productivity... they take a hit for every shutdown for every late appointment.. i have had a load or two where he calls me and says we are on thin ice with a particular customer and if i cant do it on time and legally he will put someone else on the load and get me something else. The economy is going south and customer service is all we have to sell...

i dont know this is fact, but when Prime bought TRL... The TRL dispatchers did not like the fact that their pay was changed to performance based on their boards... its a team effort now.

Is there a single company ou there that doesnt offer recruitment bonus to drivers? i dont think so. there is just as much truth online as there are lies. Weed through the info make your own decision.

I will say that this is a business... im a company driver getting my chops. when and if I go lease there is MUCH more responsibility and there is MUCH more money that can be made. its a decision I have to make.

 

im leaving for prime next week and im wondering what i need to look for and bring.

 

I am going to be honest...prime sucks...Don and Rob run that hell hole in the ground by treating drivers like total crap... As far as im am concerned they suck and will never be what they claim to be.

 

Sorry you had such a bad experience with them, I know many who have made a GREAT living there both on the company driver side and Lease Operator side.

 

How could things have been better there?

Thanks

 

Well it seems they do not care about there drivers so they lie and when your in an accident for driving illegal due to being forced to drive over 11 hours they fire you and tell the police you were terminated and left in their equipment.

Rob told one of my friends that was in an accident that he wasn't worried about him but about his equipment and reputation.

 

It has been said many times and in many ways, "The driver is the captain of the ship and NO ONE can force them to drive over their 11, 14 or 70." If you shut it down because you are out of hours in Laramie, WY how is a dispatcher in Springfield going to make you start it up and drive on down the road? Impossible! And all it takes if they try is a call to the safety department or, as one driver said he did, threaten to show the qualcomm message to the next DOT officer and any "push" is ended.

 

I made such a call to safety one time.

I was told by the safety director to do what the dispatcher said.

I left the company shortly after this.

 

This last company I drove for didn't even give the drivers log books. He said it was up to the driver to buy them if they wanted them. The drivers only turned logs in when they felt like it, and they were never asked for them.

I usually ran within the 100 air mile radius. I kept a time sheet for every day, and if I ran longer I attached a log also. I was the only driver to do this out of five TT drivers and three straight truck drivers. One other turned most of his in, but you would pass out laughing trying to figure how he ran so far in so little time.

I have seen a driver pushed into driving 11 hours OTR straight for a morning delivery after having been on the clock for 10 hours driving local. He was broke, and was afraid he would lose his job.

He was told he could go home long enough to eat and get a change of clothes, then leave, and be at the delivery on time.

I can't tell you all the things they didn't do they were supposed to, and all the things they got by with. It would take 10 pages.

 

Aint't this the the way it really is. Companies give drivers orders no matter how unreasonable they might be, and if you can't do it, or won't do it, they find away to get rid of you. And this is what seems to be being said by the drivers, IE, save fuel or your fired. Now we hear talk of drivers being compelled to get 7.25 miles per gal. It was'nt just about 3 mos ago I was tell the guy who start that prime driver sight, that truck drivers driving the new Volov's were telling me that they were getting 7.25 mpg. He then ridiculed me saying that the drivers were lying and suggested that I was a fool for listening them. Now we hear this guy saying you need to get 7.25 mpg to get a fuel bonus? What the heck are these guys talken about.