Looking for ways to get your CDL?

That's ridiculous, who on earth would jump into trucking to make $500/week even if it's just for 90 days.

At Prime you get $700/week ($100/day) the moment you pass your cdl test. It doesn't matter if you are in a truck or not as long as you are ready to drive and be dispatched. Even if you are stopped getting a reset, during training you still get that $100/day.

The $700 is based on 5k team miles at .14/mile while you are training. If you do over 5k team miles you earn more. I had more than one check during my training that was over $800.

I just don't get why people go to companies like crst or swift rather than Prime. After 3 months of training I made right around $5k during my TNT training and I'm now sitting in a brand new truck as a company driver.

The only downside I've seen at Prime is for company you get the lightweight truck unless you take a .05/mile cut for the full size. In the lw, I'm getting .47/mile before fuel and safety bonus.

If I'm not mistaken isn't Swift only .36/mile and Crst is forced team for a year?

You have to get experience somewhere, so might as well be a place that has new trucks and pays decent..

 

Well prime drags their feet quite a bit but yes I believe prime is a better option though still not much better of a company when you have experience. CRST rushes and puts drivers in seats when they’re not ready. I failed 2 students and they still were upgraded right to a truck. Prime makes sure you’re ready for the most part is what I gather from the outside looking in.

 

Yeah, there is of course better options for guys with experience but for a new guy with no cdl or a band new cdl its hard to beat them.

 

I agree 100% them or knight actually even swift but swift sends drivers to seats before properly trained as well.

Saturday I’m driving west i80 Wyoming and say a CRST truck about 60 miles east of rock springs and it pissed me off. The truck had rolled there was light snow and high winds the night before and a driver that doesn’t know when the conditions should make him/her slow down or #### down and the truck crashed 2 people hurt or dead and why? Because CRST method of operation is okay with their current loss rate whether or not that loss rate includes people’s lives truckers and motoring public

 

700 bucks a week is barely above the 500 a week offered of crst. At prime you train for three months. It is really just teaming with a guy who has six months experience. Who wants to team for three months for 700 a week?

If prime was so good, why do they hire new drivers? Because they are just like swift and crst. Cheap freight using even cheaper drivers. I wouldn't team for 700 a week. That is just wrong. Only a new driver would fall for that.

 

You can do worse than prime. The point I was trying to make is that you should get about one year of experience and then run away as fast as you can. If you want to spend three months of that year teaming while your trainer is in the bunk sleeping, go for it. Who needs three months of training anyways? Get a year of experience with somebody, anybody and then run for your life before they trash your DAC.

 

You can't train at Prime with only 6 months. To be a TNT trainer you have to have 9 months min with no safety issues. To be a PSD trainer it's a min of a year.

Trainers for any company will be good and bad. I've heard of bad trainers at Prime from other students but in those cases, the student usually got off that truck and got a new trainer.

Now my biggest complaint about training at Prime is there is room for abuse if a trainer tries to keep you longer for extra miles.

I did have that issue but it was resolved with a single phone call by me telling my fleet manager I was ready to upgrade. As long as you have no safety issues they won't argue with you if you ask to upgrade once you hit your miles, from what I've seen.

 

Why doesn't anyone mention Roehl it's always prime swift or crst. Roehl pays you $500 from day 1 training to get your CDL. Crst I wouldn't go to just from all I read and saw on YouTube and then the guy who drove on the boardwalk. Doesn't seem like a great place to train.

I call crst crusty. Now when you see a crst driver you can say here comes crusty the clown lol! Just kidding.