Can anyone share experiences with Prime Inc student driver training?

You won't be bringing home 600 a week after deduction from prime or any cdl training program while training.
Prime while training you would get 462 after taxes. - 25 more if you took the 200 a week advances. 437.00 then what ever your expenses end up being.

 

be very very carefulle and not let them BS you into a lease program. They will claim you will make lots of good money, yet don't disclose what you gotta pay for.

 

I love the ones that come out of the woodwork when these questions get asked. Prime won't BS you into anything, they will provide you the information and options to make an informed and intelligent choice on your own. So many guys go lease and they think they are going to light the world on fire, my thoughts are still the same. If you never built a house would you start a house building company, If not, why start a trucking company if you never drove a truck. And no, I am not a lease operator, I am company, I am 52 years old used to work at NASA until the economy went crappy and I got layed off. Prime has done everything they said they would do. No the money is not great in the beginning but you have to start somewhere and no other company beats the pay that prime offers. You live in St. Louis so you are only 4 hours from home when you get to the terminal. Yes they lend you 200.00 a week while a student then when you get your license and go with a trainer you get guaranteed 600.00 a week. you will be with the trainer for about 2 months. That is based on a 5000 mile week. Most weeks, you and your trainer will run 6000 to 6500 miles per week. I NEVER got less that 700.00 when I was training. Now I average 2800 to 3000 miles a week by myself, usually gets between 800.00 to 1000.00 per week, depends on your tax rate etc. everyone is different. If you can suffer the few months, you need to go with prime. On here listen to Iron Pony, U2 exit, Open road dreamer, Carabello, Moose and a few others. These guys including me, will all play 100% straight with you. Wish you the best. All the nay sayers will always tyell you someone else was at fault for their failures with any trucking company, it can usually be traced back to themselves. Wish you the best of luck

 

This is not something to get into if your on the edge and out of options.

There is no Student pay at Prime... It's a $200 loan from which you are expected to eat and live on the road with. There are possible speed bumps and you'll find that paycheck getting furthur away. Sometimes you have to wait for an instructor to be assigned (I waited a whole extra week). Sometimes you are assigned and the guy hasn't got to town, or you can't leave cause his truck is in for repairs. There could be conflict necessitating an instructor change. That takes time.

Three weeks out is an estimate. Load parameters, test scheduling, or the fact that your instructor doesn't think you are ready can keep you out longer. Your instructor may take hometime.

It was 7 weeks before I got my first garaunteed check. 2 weeks in Springfield, 4 weeks on the road, tested out, THEN you got to drive a week as a trainee for that check. There were no cash bonuses for students to pass all three portions of the exam on the first try

Now the garauntee as a trainee pays $600 or .12/mile, whichever is greater. You and your trainer run more than 5k in a week then you'll be making the .12/mile ang getting more than $600. Don't forget taxes, $25 per week to pay back the $200 weekly loan, there will be deductions if you get your TWIC and passport through Prime. (you can pay for them on your own or they loan you the money, hence the deduction)

You step off that truck for hometime and that garauntee is gone for the week. If your hometime bridges a Tuesday, that's 2 weeks without the garauntee (pay week ends and begins at 1600 Centrl on Tues)

However, if your trainer (trainer, not instructor) takes hometime and you choose to remain on the truck, you get the garauntee.

So training miles is 40k. Prime gives you a 10k credit for completing PSD (student) and then you have 30k team miles with your trainer. Estimate 5k per week and you are looking at about 6 weeks. Hometime (you or your trainer) is a speedbumb. Truck repairs. You may want hometime and plan for 4 days but not get picked back up for a week. Trainer keeps rolling and they have to get a load back thru to where you are.

My last trainee took 9 paychecks to get through his 30k. I had a funeral, which he stayed on the truck, and he took 4 days hometime (it was 6 because of load requirements to get me back to him).

When I started total training miles at Prime was 60k. I came at the last week in March, liscensed first week of May. Training miles and rolling in my own truck by the first week of Aug after taking 10 days off between upgrade and picking up my truck.

Best case scenario says 10 weeks minimum before solo. So I'd plane for 12 weeks.

 

If you read the posts on this Prime forum you will find that these guys are consistent on what they say.

I don't know if you are married or not. But both me and my wife have cut back substantially on all of our bills and got rid of those things that we could do without (Netflix, XM, Premium Channels, ... ). Personally I sold my car and all equipment i had for my present job. Then we saved as much as we needed to get threw 5 weeks of no pay. We have been working on this for the last 3 months. This isn't something that you just jump into. My situation may be different then yours but you have to have a plan in order for it to work.
Good Luck urgefan77

 

People fail to mention, PRIMES Trucks are Governed at 54,57, and 62 mph.
You can only drive 70 hours a week.
That you have to wait to be loaded and unloaded.


If your running 6500 a weeks with your trainer, Your be pissing in bottles, not showering, eating junk for 12 cents a mile lol.
Minimum wage is 7.25 a hour do the math. You make more at mcdonalds working those hours and at least you wont be pissing in a bottle and sharing a bunk with another grown man while neither of you are showering.

 

Every OTR driver only has 70 hours a week to drive. (without a 34 hour restart).

 

Lets take worst case scenario and Prime trainer insists on driving 50mph. (so we can all agree that anything above 50 mph is more PRODUCTIVE and MORE MONEY when you don't factor MPG)

50 mph equals 50 miles per hour. 50 times .12 is $6 per hour. Ok technically that's under mininmum wage. But oh no! The trainee gets paid for every dispatched mile, so he's making $6 an hour while he sleeps and his trainer is driving.

6500 miles at 50mph is 130 hours. Legaly Combined hours of duty in a "fresh" week is 140 for teo drivers. Let's just say the other 10 hours is completely occupied by fueling, loading, unloading, post trips, and actual miles is always a bit more than dispatched (paid) miles.

Math says 6500 dived by 140 is about 46.4 mph. Multiply that by .12 equals $5.57 per hour. Since the trainee is only responsible to work for 70 of the 140, we double that number and it's $11.14 an hour.

Beats mininmum wage again.

Oh wait, even if the truck runs less than 5000 miles, the trainee is garaunteed $600 if he is on the truck for all 7 days of that pay period (no hometime days that week) the trainee could sit on the truck all week and not work a minute and still gets $600.

Any trainee who has a hygiene issue, where a trainer is not stopping for showers, is to be reported to training dept. Have your facts straight and present them. Dates, times, locations ate helpful and can br matched to logs.

know that you can't reset the clock without a 34 hour restart (under team the truck will not move for at least 24 hours)

Finally, without a restart it's actually 70 hours in 8 days per driver. Hours run today are not recycled to your 70 clock until the 8th day (Wed hours come back at midnight next Thursday) So using the previous example: 8 times 24 is 192. Minus 140 hours is 52 hours available somewhere in that week for eating, showering etc.

 

Oh, and the trainee collects 25% of the fuel bonus on all miles on trips scanned in within 48 hours. So between .001 to .01 additional pay per mile on all team miles.

 

Ran 6600 loaded miles last week. Have yet to piss in a bottle. Showered at least every other day. Ate just fine.
You sure do know a lot for a guy that never even made it out of PSD and never ran team here. Why don't you list what the other large carriers pay during training.