Companies that train, pay while you train, and aren't quick to wash you out

I'm wondering how he knows any of this. This guy's first posts are in December when he says he is tired of his life and has applied to Swift, Roehl and Prime. By the first week in January he's saying that he rejected Swift and Prime - and his subsequent posts are all in Roehl threads. So exactly how is this guy a "former Prime driver?" IMO, he's just another guy passing around false BS that poses as the truth around the web. It does no one any good... especially folks like the OP who is looking for information, not BS.

In my experience no one is allowed to push leases at Prime with the knowledge of management. There is no "bounty" paid for introducing someone to a lease. In my nearly three years on the company side NO ONE ever mentioned the subject of leasing a truck to me.

On the subject of postive vs negative posts... heck yeah. You can find plenty of negative posts about EVERY carrier over in the Bad Company threads. It's interesting to count the number of bad threads that appear about a carrier and use that as a metric as to whether they're really bad, indifferent or OK. You'll certainly find folks who had a bad experience at Prime, and ya know what? That's fine. Different strokes for different folks as they used to say. Not everything they do at Prime is OK with me either... but on the whole they haven't PO'd me, and none of what I don't particularily like about Prime is enough to send me somewhere else. Personally, I like the "green" I'm making over here enough that the rest doesn't bother me.

 

IP is dead on here. When I started at Prime I came in as a company driver and leasing was NEVER pushed on me. The only time it was mentioned to me was when they were re-organizing operations where fleet managers would have either lease or company trucks but not both, and all that was said was I would have to change to another fleet manager if I was going to be a company driver. I had a very good working relationship with my FM at that point, so I was able to get him to delay for a few months to wait for spring for me to lease a truck, and then I never looked back.

 

pot/kettle huck. perhaps others wouldntve been so quick to be condescending if you hadnt opened your first post by being such an ***. maybe the info that others gave in good faith b4 you wasnt correct (and yet you didnt really correct anything i said, only restated it a little differently when it came to prime), but then again yours wasnt correct either. when called on it by a prime driver, he is being condescending? lol.

 

The same could be said about Prime. Their positive posts sound almost too positive (no problems what so ever, everything perfect). Almost like their plants from Prime recruiters.

 

I read somewhere that Prime fronts the money for food during orientation and also pays $650.00 a week during driving with a trainer. If this is correct, that's a good deal. Central Refrigerated also sounds very good.

 

Both programs seem pretty good from what the rectuiters have told me, but I have to remark on what another user said about the Prime forum. I have also noticed the same thing. I am choosing between Prime, Central, and Millis, and the forums for each company have been REALLY helpful. But there is something that seems suspicious about some of the Prime users on their forum. More than once I have had the feeling that their are recruiters or trainers or plants that are protecting primes reputation. I've seen this on non-prime forums too...i dont get it. They get really defensive when other people have prime horror stories, and leave posts that try to blame everything else but prime. I know if i drive for Prime, i'm not going to troll the forums and become some company defender.

 

They provide you with a meal card good at the cafeteria at the training facility or the grill at the terminal, and a room at the Campus Inn during orientation. PSD students are advanced $200 per week (paid back at $25 per week once employed) until they get their CDL. After you get your CDL, you're an employee, and you are paid $600 per week before taxes during training.

For the most part I haven't had any problems with the people here. I don't like some of the policies, but after I started leasing much of that went away. I don't particularily like the way they limit charging optional services on your settlement... things I'm going to pay for in any case. It's not a problem... just a peeve. Their habit of putting drive tires on trailers leads to higher fuel consumption... don't much like that either. In the big picture, these aren't the kind of things that concern new drivers and how they interact with management, so you're not going to here us biotching to you guys about it.

Sorry to dissapoint guys. We're drivers. Yup, some folks have problems at Prime... frequently they're the cause of their own problems. It's not always that way, and some do have bad experiences here. It happens. Many of the "horror" stories don't ring true with us... and a lot of those folks only have themselves to blame for their problems.

 

The other big plus I see with Prime, is they have reefer, flatbed, tanker. Drivers can change divisions without going thru the hiring process over and over again.

 

If I saw someone actively trashing my company I might do the same. What you learn out here is that many new drivers create their own bad situations, and when a company has been good to you dispelling negative stories feels more like a public service than "recruiting". There ARE starter companies that will make your life much harder and if no one sets the record straight how are the newbies supposed to know which companies are the good ones? Prime and central were my top two choices when I started, thanks entirely to what I learned right here on this forum. Be thankful this information is out here rather than suspicious of everything you hear.

 

FWIW, his(newbietrucker43 or something like that) posts go back to early last year(2012) and he was with prime over the summer.

Not defending him, just sayin'. Having said that though, Prime would be on my short list decent starters.