Any Prime TNT students here?

^^ Haya Jojo . . . search and read some of the Prime threads, and also the L/P threads. Unless you've got experience in trucking AND business, it appears that Lease benefits the company more than the driver.

 

Just to quickly reply -

I've just completed my 1 year with Prime and am actually sitting waiting to pick up my final load to haul back to Springfield to turn the truck in. Getting a local job that will have me home daily as I am getting married in July.

I stayed on the company side simply for the fact that I'm new to the industry and didn't want to burden myself with learning the business side right off the bat. I've heard both pros and cons to leasing, but my instructor at Prime went through two successful leases before going company about eight years ago, for the simple reason he didn't need the extra money anymore since his kids were moved out.

My trainer was a company driver also. He was very excellent, and we are still good friends. Your experience may vary, but if your trainer isn't doing a good job, just go up the chain of command (fleet manager, etc.) to lay out the issues. Personally speaking, I couldn't have had a better experience.

I was on my trainer's truck from early/mid March until the beginning of May. He took four days of home time toward the end of March, and due to the unpredictability of the industry, the time I spent in MO while he was getting home to NC turned into a week and a half, hence the long training period.

We "gelled" pretty quickly, and for the better part of April, our fleet manager had us on runs going from CA to the east coast and back to CA, and we were averaging 6,500 to 7,000 miles per week. One week we hit just a shade over 7,500 miles.

Again, don't know if my experience was expressly unique, or if it was fairly typical. Hope that helps!

 

Thank you! I might also note that my trainer was a company driver, and it seems company drivers run more miles typically, while lease drivers get paid higher revenue, and thus are picky with loads...they're running a business and want to maximize revenue per mile so they can also maximize their profit to revenue ratio. I'm sure there's other factors that can affect miles, but I'm still a newbie.