Prime Inc Vs Swift Transportation

I am just finishing my training with Prime. I feel the the way their CDL and apprentice training programs are organized is hard to beat. In the CDL training phase (PSD) you are actually running live loads while you are learning to take the test for your CDL. You will be exposed to all types of driving conditions and real world applications. In the apprentice phase (TNT) you will get paid a guaranteed $600 per week while you and your trainer accumulate a minimum of 30,000 miles. Once you have reached that threshold you will qualify for an "A" seat upgrade to your own truck. I will be ready for my upgrade in just under two weeks

 

My orientation class started on June 12th. So basically the whole process will take me just over 3 months. Now in that three months my training has included my trainer taking 6 days of hometime and we had 5 down days while our truck was being repaired after we got hit at a TA in Arizona.

 

All trucking companies are the same as far as low pay and inhumane life-style. Swift Transportation offers a great advantage over Prime Inc in limiting mentoring to 240 hours or 200 if you start with Central side of Swift. After the 200 hours you are solo on your own truck. This advantage is serious when you realize that most trucking mentors are folks with low life and poor logic. Being stuck with a crazed mentor for 6 weeks is enough torture beside the lousy pay of minimum wages of driving and on duty times.

Prime Inc would squeeze the life out of you with a delinquent mentor and six months of homelessness. Not that Swift would make you richer, but that you would retain your sanity with the truncated mentoring period.

 

I see your profile says you live in Northern Florida, which means (if you chose Swift) your home terminal will likely be Ocala, FL.

A friendly warning to you:

I trained and drove with Swift for almost 2 years and my experience was overall positive from my terminal in Columbus, OH. Dispatchers were great guys, planned intelligently, always drove nice, clean equipment, never pushed to do anything illegal, paid what I was owed, always home The Day I asked to be...

However...
A good friend I met while in the training school in Millington lived in N. Florida as well and was based in Ocala after our training was completed (Nice guy, respectful, professional, skilled driver). Take everything positive I just said about my terminal and invert it. He had a polar opposite experience... Dispatchers pressed him to inhuman workloads, shorted pay, stayed out longer than supposed to, etc... He ended up quitting after 4 months with his dispatcher following him to the parking lot trying to start a physical fight.

Edit - Wow, didn't til just now realize this thread was almost 2yrs old... so much for it being read by the OP.

 

Training sucks, that's for sure, but as far as pay goes... Do Swift drivers often make more than 600 dollars a week? I'm not even kidding. I haven't worked for either of these guys OP, but from everything you'll read on here to what I've heard in person from people who have worked for Prime, it's a no contest. Prime wins.

 

Perfect timing for me to notice this thread, lol.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...rs/254818-is-this-good-pay-newbie-driver.html

 

Prime pay is better.
Prime has APUs but small trucks.

Swift has lower pay and no APUs.

If you don't mind ending up in a Lightweight (smaller) truck, go with Prime..

 

Lol this post is from 2012.