Prime Inc. - A year in review

Mine is 62-63... If I dont maintain a 6.5 MPG or above for more than 3 weeks it can be turned down to 58.

I have heard of a new company driver hopping in a truck that was turned down to 58 because of the previous driver, and not being allowed to have it turned up.

For all I know, he could have been lying and not wanting to look bad because he couldnt keep his foot out of the gas.

I run most of the time at 58 in hill country, and 55 on the flats. Employ quite a few techniques on hills to keep the cruise from burning too much fuel... use gravity, optimized shifting points, balance load etc..

Ive missed fuel bonus only a handfull of times, sometimes heading in one direction, and excellent milage coming back.

 

Alot of information about training and what to expect can be found in my training experiance thread.

I have a very high opinion of Prime. I have no other experiance with which to quantify that with, but I have been treated great here. At no time have I ever felt cheated or like they were trying to get one over on me. Every once in a while pay details get overlooked, but quickly corrected and never in any sort of way that seemed like it was intentional.

I think the equipment is great. Drivers are responsible for finding problems with tractors and trailers on the road and Prime will get them fixed at the next TA or Petro... or even a trailer repair shop. If you happen to pass through a terminal, Prime does thourough inspections upon entry and corrects the problems, then and there.

As far as comparing it to trucking schools... Ive never attended one... Prime trained me... I would say 90 percent of your instruction is entrusted to your driver instructor... which is out on the road under real world conditions for 3-4 weeks.

Obvious advantage is the real world experiance... I would say the dis-advantage is that your instruction is only as good as your instructor.

I had an awesome instructor who was firm while we still had fun. He took full advantage of down time by having me practice backing whenever and wherever it was possible.

There are some really great instructors here, and I have heard of a few rotton ones. I wish I could tell you how to avoid them, or get a good one, but sometimes there is no rhyme or reason on how they are assigned.

If you attend a school and then come here, its wide open on trainers... trainers teach you the way we operate and how to do the paperwork... its a team situation acumulating team miles. Training periods can be drawn out with home time and sometimes the trainee has to be pro-active in their situation.

You could go 2 weeks of doing the same thing before you run into a situation you have never seen before at a shipper and reciever. thats why I reccomend (but not to hurt your sleep time) that you be up for arrivals at appointments, or at least review with your trainer any abnormal situations that may have come up at the last stop and how he delt with them... There certainly will be times where you will be on duty and handling the appointment and having to wake up him for any advice on situations, so why not have him wake you up when he does them.

 

Even if our trucks were turned up to 65mph, I wouldnt have a job because I would have been fired for poor fuel milage. So closer to 6 hours.

I didnt say it was alot of miles, its my average weekly miles, including time at home. Some weeks almost 3k some weeks below 2k.

Its not alot of work if it is spread over the entire week like you suggest, but thats not the real world. In a perfect world I would love a job that says, hey you run x miles this week and you have 7 days to it. But the nature of the job is... get a load deliver, wait for the next load... and dont forget appointments... get a load... wait for pickup appointment...drive...wait for delivery appointment... wait for next load.

You cant accuse me of padding my numbers to make PRIME look any better than any other company. They are just so so and probably boderline poor. Im just giving honest numbers, and others can decide if Prime is the place for them. Would I like a higher average, yes.

Some weeks when the miles are there, by the end of the week I am hoping for a slower week... and there are a couple slow weeks in a row where I am praying for a busy week.

Im one year down, and always looking for opportunities. If anyone has suggestions for a job that pays good, garunteed miles, has me home everyweek for 2 days, and good equipment... feel free to message me...

Oh, wait... there are thousands of other drivers looking for that job too.