Prime the facts

Your welcome! Between the 2 if it was me I would go with crete.

 

I just need the training and OTR experience for long enough to qualify for a regional/local gig so I can have some decent home time. Don't get me wrong... I don't have to be home all of the time... if I did, I wouldn't apply with Prime... and I am fully committed and looking forward to getting into OTR for at least a few years (maybe much more, we'll see), but my long term goal is to get into something regional/local that pays decent and gets me home quite a bit.

Also, the cost of living where I live is relatively very low... heck, even the training pay is more than I can potentially get for a job around here. Yeah, I could probably get a desk job for close to $30,000/year, but I would rather kill myself than work another friggin desk job.

 

if those are the two choices then i agree.

 

I liked the training. Although I will admit, alot of how well your training goes is in what kind of Instructor and trainer you get.

Plenty of horror stories and just as many success stories around the Terminal at Prime.

Personality clashes, Instructor/Trainer style of teaching..... etc. cause problems...

and it is definantly a two way street. Trainees with big heads, big mouths, and big ideas on how they think things should go can cause problems. Take one of these guys and put him side by side with some of these loud mouth "Super Truckers" at the Truck stop diner, and the only difference is training and experiance....

Shut your mouth, and do as you are told... but only so far as to not put yourself in a dangerous/unsafe position. You can do what you want, or get away with on your own truck AFTER your training.

No rest for the weary, my trainee and I have been on the move constantly since I picked him up from home time last week. Running up against our 70 for the last couple days.

I picked him up outside Chicago last Sunday while I was on a solo load from CO to MI... since then loads from MI to ND, ND to NY, Upstate NY to OH, WV to CA.... currently in MO on a load from CA to IL that delivers early morning.

My time at home, and then his time at home kinda slowed down his progress, but at our current rate I should have his 50k done in the next 3-4 weeks.

My time at home was very date specific so things didnt work out to get him home while I was on my hometime. He stayed on the truck and I got him a hotel room for 2 nights. He still got his $600 dollars that week and we got him home (5 days) within a couple days after we got back on the road, for which he just got paid his .12/team mile.

It worked out better this way as I was going to VA and he lives outside of Chicago... So I would have dropped him off, probably 2 days for me to get home and delivery the load, be off for 4 days, and then another 2 days to get loaded and back through Chicago... thats 8 days and thats 2 weeks without the gauranteed $600 for him. (must be on the truck and available for dispatch all 7 days of that pay week to get the $600-- cut off is Tues)

 

Well... then obviously you have nothing to contribute to a discussion of reefer ops, do you?

Lumpers: Beats the heck out of getting a work-related injury that ends your driving career. Lumpers are paid for by the shippers and receivers - Prime reimburses all lumper payments to both company drivers and lease-ops.

Portable Storage: Can you say detention?

Insane Time Frames: All of our loads are scheduled for 50mph - doesn't always happen that way, and I've turned down loads that I can't make with no consequences. Most companies encourage their dispatchers to punish a driver who turns down a load by letting them sit for days - doesn't happen at Prime in my experience.

They went through a bankruptcy in the 80's and reorganized as New Prime Inc., dba Prime Inc. Says quite a bit about the business acumen of the owner, since most companies go into bankruptcy and die.

Out making money.

Steve wouldn't stop when asked by the site owners, and paid the price. I've never received a cent for recruiting, and don't look to. As far as I know neither has Sazook (a vet and lease-op who is happy with things) or U2.

That's up to the individual. Not interested myself, and have never been pressured to go that way.

Not according to my management and safety. They prefer to keep experienced drivers on board. Probably why I rarely meet newbs on the road.

That would be Perryman and Associates. He does a lot of business with many truck drivers from company types to owner ops. The man leases a space from Prime to make it easier for us to go to his office. I find that to be convenient, since I am rarely at the yard for more than a few hours and I don't have time to waste dropping a trailer, bobtailing all over Springfield, etc.

Yeah, it's at the terminal. So what? All of Primes tractors are assigned through that office. Makes sense that they are there since thats where the equipment is.

Kick back? I assume you have proof of this. Day care, cafeteria, etc are all independently operated businesses. You say "kick back." That's slander...

I'm 54-years old, a veteran of the Vietnam era, and have enough experience in the work world to understand what being screwed-over is. This isn't it.

Pep talk? Huh??? If the management wants to have a weekly safety meeting, then that's probably a good deal in and of itself. During the half-dozen or so Friday mornings I've actually been at the terminal, I've never attended what I'd call "a pep talk." Having worked a retail position for a year or two, I know what that is, and the safety meetings aren't that. And yeah, if someone wants to buy me breakfast, I'm happy to eat it.

No one has told me to live in the truck for "months at a time." Get my home time when I want it. And I'll be in Denver tomorrow if you want to know.

Meaning I am? Agreed, you probably couldn't support a family on one income ala being a company driver. But who can anymore?

Ok Mr. Old Hand Who Knows Everything About Trucking In The Entire Universe, educate us. Where is this perfect trucking job that pays a million bucks every load, pays for everything including all the fuel your right foot can shoot out the stack, and has you home 24-hours a day?

Look... I don't claim Prime is perfect, never have and never will. But neither is Prime the "EVIL TRUCKING CO OF THE UNIVERSE" either - I hear you have to be working for CRE, Swift or Werner for that. What you and cactusjack post is completely at odds with my experience - so what am I supposed to do... just wag my head and agree?

Bull!

So educate me. Where exactly should I be working?

 

There are as many bad things posted about Crete as No Tarps and cactusjack can post about Prime. Keep in mind they both had bad experiences with Prime (not sure about cactusjack... he won't tell us about his problems) - but I haven't had the same luck with this outfit.

If you want some good advice, get ahold of recruiters from both companies and ask them the same questions (look in the new driver folder here) and compare. My impression is the repayment terms are better at Prime, and we offer a longer training period than almost all other carriers. That's a good thing, considering what a dangerous business this is.

If you have questions about training, ask U2 - he's training now.

Then think about what you want to be doing. Crete is a dry van operation, and I've heard their drivers talking about sitting as much as 3 and 4 days between loads. Prime is a refridgerated van company. People have to eat, and you can stuff 98% of dry van loads in a reefer. I'd say we've had more and better loads than Crete does.

 

Well; for one I will put in my 2 cents worth on prime, and all the answers you supplied sounds like it is well rehearsed from primes play book. One question was prime your first driving exp? I may be wrong, but by the way you reply and take offense to anyone that speaks out against prime I can't help, but think you started there again me stating the ones that get offended about someone speaking out about prime got their start there and have no co to compare with. I may be wrong and will apologize if I am wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that prime was your start in trucking.

 

Recruiters??? What if he wants truthful answers?? Prime's recruiter lied to me more than any recruiter I have ever dealt with. Sure crete has problems. All companys do, but their reputation is a lot better than primes.

 

You know after reading through all of this I had a few moments when I had to clean my windshield up cause i laughed while drinking my gatorade waiting to unload. I think my outfit can pull some rather boneheaded moved (routing being the name 1 i am up against tonight lol), but even these idiots pay for loadlocks. Please don't drink the kool-aid yall, if you got to pay for equipment needed for securing THEIR freight while you drive THEIR equipment there should be some major alarms going off right from the start.

 

It's not. I listen Ken Rutherford a lot, and other drivers. I know folks working for Werner and Swift who think they have a good deal going. And if I were quoting "Primes Playbook" then I'd be encouraging one and all to go stake their futures on a lease deal here. I don't - that's verifiable through my posts here.

It is... so what? I see the way people are treated at other companys, and feel that things aren't bad here. And I say so.

And so what if it is? I'm not "fresh" at the game of life. I've worked most of my life as a professional engineer, and have been treated worse by major corporations with brand names that all of you would recognize.

Look... I agree that you got a raw deal from Prime's flatbed division. I know other guys who are prefectly happy there. But you and cactusjack are at fault as well. You had a bad experience... then go on to say that no one can work at Prime without being screwed over as well - even in divisions that aren't associated with Prime's flatbed management. I get a little upset over that, because that's not my experience in the reefer division, and say so. You respond that I can in know way know when I'm being screwed...

And on it goes. None of this is helpful to someone looking in from the outside trying to judge whether this is a good place to go. As far as starter companies go, Prime is a pretty good one. I'll refer you to the two guys who were driving for Covenant, training each other, after having their CDLs for all of two days. Or the Werner gal who couldn't do a straight pull in into a rest area parking place, and managed to tear the side out of a trailer. Or the CRST guy who was scared s#^tless driving on ice in Wyoming because no one had ever taught him how to do it. Or the Western guy who crashed at the bottom of the steep grade on I75 south of Chattanooga with 45,000 lbs of Bud because no one had taught him you can't take those grades at 65 mph.

So yeah, when you and cactusjack start going on about what a bad company Prime is, I'll disagree. That's my privilege, and I figure trading 6 years of my life for the oath of enlistment during time of war allows me that privilege.

- I'm not forced to drive in unsafe conditions.
- I'm not forced to run in violation of HOS regulations.
- We've been getting more loads with less down time than many of the other large companys.
- The equipment is in good shape (except for YOUR tractor) and is well maintained.
- I'm not forced to run team with the codriver from hell.
- I haven't been coerced into training.
- The pay is reasonable as a company driver... remember I used to work as an engineer, so I know what a really good paycheck is.
- In my opinion, the training program is excellent, and Prime pays trainees better than most.
- No one has ever tried to coerce me into signing a lease.

So yeah, I had to pay for my locks. BFD. It's tax deductible.

Like I said, my experience with Prime has been satisfactory. I place the safety part of it above all. Nope... haven't driven for 19,000,000-years like y'all, but I've had enough experience with life to know a good deal when I'm in one.