Who to pursue?

If you dont want to go OTR you dont have too as local companies will hire without experience. I never spent a day OTR. The most OTR i have done is a layover for my company. Besides the LTL teams if I had too, there is only one OTR company i'd look into but I dont really plan on it. Maybe as a nice retirement job though.

Well if you do go OTR I would scratch Swift and CR England off the list. PRime I have heard good things from a friend of mine who worked there. With Werner Ive heard multiple of bad and good. A guy I knew who used to run the same Home Depot as I when I used to peddle LOVED the company and told me his perks which seemed pretty good. Watkins I know is good so keep them up there. JBS and May I know nothing about. Try to see if you can get a nice dedicated account through one of them

 

Most companies don't have tuition reimbursement to $10,000...more like $5,000 or $6,000 and that's if they are the first company you got to work for out of CDL school

I believe Werner has the highest turnover rate in the industry now.

Roadmaster...well, I went to Roadmaster in Chattanooga. $6500 for a CDL...too much. Another school here was $4300. Roadmaster told me they had a cash only price for $4995. After the saleswoman's explanation it turned into you could pay $4995 for the class ONLY if you got hired b a company that had tuition reimbursement or Roadmaster would give you an interest free loan for the remaining $1500. I was told that the company that hired you would have to send them $1500 to cover the other part. I don't trust Roadmaster after having to dig that out of them.

Most cdl schools are recruited by the same big companies like Werner, Swift, Covenant, USXpress, Knight, Stevens, etc...these are the same companies everyone is complaining about. The best thing to do is call the company you want to work for and find out who they recommend and then set it all up that way. Nothing worse than spending $5k and finding out you are going to have to start with a company you were trying to avoid.

 

Watkins & Shepard no longer has a CDL school, even though it shows one on their website. They do have tuition reimbursement though. Prime would be good as they offer refrigerated, tanker, flatbed plus pay you $600.00 a week while riding with a trainer.

 

If you do go the schooling route, consider good companies like Gordon Trucking, James Clark are two good ones. May trucking is another good one as is Pride Transport. You can always go to Prime.

KH

 

I don't know much about prime but I know that there trucks are slow. My truck is set at 62mph and I pass prime all the time. So if your ok with going slower then most everyone on the road and making less miles then I guess that be ok for you. I don't there is a perfect training company out there but if I had to do it again I think I would go with Stevens. Instead I went with FFE witch started ok but ended bad. To make a long story short I went with them becuz I new I b on the road faster. The problem is I made a trainer mad that had a wife that became my load planner and I could deal with the big brother camera in my truck. So I made some more people mad and then I got set up to be fired after being otr for 3mounths. I drive for swift now and make a little less money per mile but my checks are biger because swift keeps me moving. My point is find the company that will keep you moving. Training dosnt really matter cuz any company can teach the basics but most of it you learn on your own. And it's all about you making money. That's the only reason I b on the road is because of money.

 

did you look at Transport America? they hire students, start .35 cpm anf .36 cpm with hazmat. if you get hazmat, gat your tank endorsement also.