Howdy from Oklahoma.

Howdy all. I am a 22 year class B veteran soon going to class A, most likely with Prime if they will have me. I have a leg up on the learning part of the whole thing because the pretrip on the trailer and maneuvering the trailer is most of what I don't know. I have played yard man and docked trailers and I an a born farmer, so I learned the mechanics of trailer maneuvering at like 12 years old. I don't know it all and don't claim too, but hopefully a few years of farm and driving knowledge will take me part of the way at least. I think I have driven every brand of tractor made short of Volvo that has been turned into on type of bobtail or another, and a hole slough of transmission including an old 5 and 4. That one took a bit to get the hang of, LOL.

I am an ex chicken farmer (was both raised on egg farms and grew broilers for ten years with my family. <---This job is what ultimately led me here......well sort of, the first sentence I spoke as a child was I was going to be a truck driver (or so I am told, LOl. So I guess maybe that led me here but either way I worked on a company farm that provided a house and both me and my wife had to work the farm and did for ten years. My wife is juvenile diabetic and after ten year of doing that work she was starting to develop the extreme muscle and joint pain that comes with the disease and we had to quit. That job furnished a house and basic utilities plus a nice salary, but what it also did that I didn't realize, was to shelter us from the reality of just how much the world was changing around us cost wise. It is amazing how much rent and utilities can go up in ten years. Anyhow, before we quit, I found a job driving a propane truck, but the money is no where near what we need to survive and we go deeper in the whole every day and my wife can't work atm in her condition so here we are.

Sorry if this is TMI but this is who I am, where I am and how I got to be here. I want to thank the many people on this forum for the time and effort they have put in explaining do's and don'ts and describing the goods and the bads of different companies. I especially want to that Skaggs or DrSkaggs for the very in-depth write up about his experience at Knight, without it, I might not have turned away from them and gave Prime another look.

 

Ok, I am interested but of course I have some questions.

1. do they have a school? I ask because there is no way I can get the loans it would take to get through the local school, and even if I could, that would be a month of 0 income.

2. I see the trucks are nice and are equipped with apu's, what tranny's do they run?

3. What kind of miles could I expect on average and what is the average out time?

4. Does the truck come home with me during home time? I will be living in southwest Missouri at that time so Tulsa looks to be the closest terminal if not.

I am not real picky about the trailer I will be pulling whether it be flatbed, reefer etc. Just don't want to be running non ballast tanks right off the bat, so I am open to flatbeds. I don't have a lick of experience with them like I do with everything else, but I figure if I can manhandle the tarps then I can learn the rest fairly quick. It isn't like I have never strapped anything down before.

If I had a truck to drive a bit and practice the pretrip on for a day then I could get my class A easily, but that whole school or experience clause is the real deal killer for me. I even have OTR class B experience and all east coast experience as well but it is both class B and it was to long ago to count even if it did amount to a hill of beans as experience. I am glad to see reputable companies taking schooling seriously though because when I started with the class B (and the reason I just have the class B), if you didn't know someone willing to take you under their wing then you were screwed. And back then most veteran drivers scowled on you if you came from a school and you had to work twice as hard to earn any respect. Anyhow I am tired and rambling on, let me know the answers if you would please. I am probably going to make a decision and call someone tomorrow, either Prime or Melton because through all my research, these are the only ones I have run across that might fit the bill.

Thanks
Zedd