Prime- Knight

My old co driver went and worked for Knight.

A bit of a back story:

This guy and I, COULD RUN. We both worked extremely hard, I mean we made long timers envious. We'd run out 7,000 miles and preform multiple drops on multiple loads, regardless of where we were. On average this guy and I could do 6-6.5 / wk average when our company could get us the freight (in trucks that did 65.) Did this for around 6/7 months and we made top mileage within the company for a couple weeks. This hard turning and burning wasn't able to be kept up because our company couldn't get us home-time regularly, and we got at each others throats in no time, working 70 hour weeks living in the cab. At the end, we hated each other.
We got out of the cab.

He left FFE for knight and I stayed (mistake on my part.)

He liked knight, said they had good operational departments and a good bit of freight moving. Most loads running under 600 miles, but he was making good money running 5-7 of those a week.
Said the idle program was reasonable. Worked on a sliding scale, if I recall correctly. "Idle more, get paid less. Idle less, get paid more." That worked out on your CPM, basically a sliding scale type fuel saving bonus.

Knowing what I know about this guy, it came as a bit of a surprise that he was terminated.
They cited "late deliveries" which is BS, because as teams we were always very, very, very early with our delivery times. He would spur me on to get the load to our drop/receiver well before it was due, rather than viva-versa.


In short, I honestly believe the guy got screwed over a personal dispute with his DM, which I don't want to go into detail because I know he's on TTR and will fill you in if he feels it's necessary.

 

It's allright.

When we say idling we mean actually letting the truck sit with and run with the parking break on, in order to operate the HVAC system and keep the batteries charged as well as the engine block heated.
Why idle?

Who wants to sit in a hot truck in the summer, or a cold truck in the winter? It can be dangerous. When your truck is -10 degrees in Kansas in the winter time because you're not idling, how are you going to sleep?
As far as maintaing the batteries: I'm tough on mine. I run appliances. I expect the batteries to say charged and able to power my inverter and thereby keeping my appliances running.
Keeping the block warm insures the truck will run when it's time to get going again, when you start a new day.



APU's can solve all three if they're running a dyno/generator and hooked up to the glycol heating system to run warmed anti-freeze through the engine block.

To you as a new driver, I say this to you: It is a basic human right in this great country of ours, not to have to sit in a god ###### truck that will not provide you with the basic parameters of life.
Heat in the winter
Cooling in the summer

These are not asking too much. Stay away from companies that are not readily willing to give you these two things, at the very least.

 

Prime is running APU's.
You can count on having a constantly running HVAC system, most of their trucks use APU's that have generators AND glycol heating systems in them to keep the block warm.
Knight will allow "sensible" idling. The trucks will idle all the time, but your CPM will decrease as you idle more and inversely, increase when you idle less.

I'm going to catch flack for this but:

If I were in your shoes, I'd go with Prime. It's a good place for companied drivers. Their training program is reasonable to say the least, and their equipment is always top-notch. Prime has a range of hauls so if you go into reefer freight (which I'm assuming you're trying to) and find out it's not your preferred line of business, you can switch out to flatbed or tanker easily. Their pay program works out well, and they do have a lease program available, though it would be advisable to stay away from the lease program for a number of reasons- all of which we won't go through here.

I'll tell you this much; if I had a Cascadia with an APU running flatbed at Prime with regular access to a grocery store to stock my fridges with, I'd be one hell of a happy driver.

 

You will chain, tarp and strap. You will be paid for tarping, not for chaining and strapping.
I personally see all three of these having a lot of longevity as far as driving goes. Railroads have a harder time stealing flatbed and tanker freight than they do dry van or reefer.

I do local flatbed work in Cleveland. It's not bad. It will be hard for a little while, when you're still learning and still building the muscle to do the job- but once you have it, it's a breeze.

Gonna go OTR this coming year again, and with the companies in mind, like: TMC, ATC, Maverick, you might be surprised to learn that Prime is still on my list of consideration. I like how they treat the drivers, but the lease purchase program is...interesting.


EDIT- and you're lucky coming out of Denver. You're literally sitting in the middle of freight for 500 miles around you. Got Denver itself, SLC not too far, Dallas/Ft.Worth right down the road, OKC and you're practically sitting in the meat patch for reefer work.

I imagine getting home time won't be hard.

 

It's not a lease purchase, there's still a balloon payment at the end. In essence, what that means is: When after you've operated the truck for so long a period of time (it could be a few months to a few years) Prime wants to sell it for a number of reasons, namely it's coming up on it's warranty coverage and becomes decidedly more expensive to operate. When Prime wants to sell the aforementioned truck, they run a balloon purchase across you as the operator. I don't know how much it is, but I know it's fair market value. If it's a 4 year old Cascadia, you can count on it going for the higher double digit tens of thousands. You can go for financing on this vehicle or, more realistically pass on it.

Some pluses to buying your leased vehicle is:

• You know how much wear and tear has been put on the vehicle
• You are familiar with what the operating costs are
• You are familiar with the business you're working with
• You have active business relationships with the company you'll be working as an o/o with

I'm sure there's more pluses and minuses to the situation, but that's just a laymen overview of the situation.
You're right to consider yourself not ready for a lease program, especially when you're just getting out of the gate.


If you want to know more about Primes Lease program, get a hold of ironpony. He also has a comprehensive post on the topic listed here.

Best of luck, and make sure you get out and look when you're alley docking next to me.