I'm in Springfield!

So, what you heard at the CDL school from people working for Prime, and what you've experienced of the CDL school makes you believe these people are telling you about why guys "don't make it"? Please do update this thread in 3 months and tell me if it's still true.

 

From what I have heard from actual Prime drivers it must be true. Well over 40 drivers asked and only one complaint. And she was happy until her boyfriend did something to tick of the fleet manager and miles went in the tank.

 

hey i been lookin in to prime trucking my self but i getting my CDL thew another schooling (not the trucking companies) do you kno the cpm rate and the mile average a week is cuz i can not find any info on that ... can anyone help...??

 

Been thur Prime's lease and yes I went broke. Now onto a lease with a diff company doing EXACTKY the same things I did with Prime and making a ton more money. With Prime I couldnt pay my bills at home, with my new lease I just bought a new truck for my son yesterday. Yea all companies claim they know why people go broke. Truth is if they really knew they would never need to lease a $110,000 truck and charge us $180,000 for it would they?

 

You will have to go through their so called training program, which consists of team driving with a trainer, for an extensive, 60,000 miles at .12 a mile before you can get on as a company driver. Just think of how much money they can make on paying a team driver at .12 a mile. even if you quit at any time they still made money on you, compared to having to pay a regular team driver. Then you go company driver and get about .30 cpm for the next 20,000 more miles above and beyond the 60,000 miles you just finished. After this I think it's about .38 cpm.

As I understand it this company is really designed to put drivers into a L/O; which costs about $800.00 a week for the truck alone, and about $1,000 plus a week all together, not including fuel. You can get out of the lease anytime the way I hear it. Buying a truck would cost half as much and you could make out great with this if you can believe what you read, but would they keep an owner busy? Why would they when they are making a ton of money on the people they lease to. It seems to me the lease guys would get the loads 1st.

Keep in mind that most anyone you talk to at Prime makes a recruitment fee on you if you sign with Prime and use them as a reference. When a driver gets into Prime if they have problems they will be strung along as long as possible, because the longer the driver is encouraged to stay the better the recruitment fee. You will be told to just go to the classes were you will learn....... It doesn't benefit any employee to talk bad about the company.

Read didntitellu's post. There are others to read also I believe; snackbar, notarpsforme, these are all I can think of for now, oh I think turbotrucker also.

I'm not saying don't go with them. I'm saying use your head. Apparently the law allows trucking companies to tell you anything they want to tell you and they are not held to there word. In the case of this company Prime has been successful at getting their drivers to do all the talk'n for them because of the referral fee structure. It's like "Snake Oil".

 

I went through Prime's CDL school straight up into a truck of my own, it is funny to see someone this gunho about it. They are not as strict as this guy is making them out to be they understand that people are people and you can get waivers and stuff for alot of things and there are exceptions. RTC division sucks you mostly get the leftovers of what the L/O's dont take so you can imagine what that means or where that means. I had my permit before ever setting foot in springfield which is what they recommend but some people are just too lazy to do it before arriving. I was a CDL student with an RTC driver who was very very knowledgeable about driving and the industry as a whole because he had been doing it for 35 years. I was one of the lucky ones because some of those guys just get a student in their to make the extra cash to increase their revenue and you are nothing more then a slave to them. After getting my CDL they placed me with this crack ##### of a man who would wake me up and make me get out of his truck with 1 inch of cigarette ash on the floor and an oversized rotweiler so he could "play" with a lot lizard, suffice to say I did 2 days with this loser and was back to Springfield to get someone decent. I then was placed with this guy who was considered a top earner in the Lease Program, I figured OK he was a hard worker and a military retiree so he was probaly going to be fine well this joker watched gay porn, talked about wearing womens dresses and expected you to drive 12 - 14 hours but fudge your log book to make it just the standard 10 or 11 on paper. I stuck it out cause even though he was a weirdo, a homo, and scary I wasnt going to ask for another trainer because I would be afraid on what they would say. Prime is a good company for the most part, you have to be really business savy and careful about your expenditures on the road if you are a lease operator in order to make a profit. It is not unheard of to make in the high 5 digits or low 6 digits after taxes, expenses, and everything else per year if you do it right. I made a pretty decent living with them and while they are not my company of choice I would not fault anyone for going with them because if you get the right people from the beginning such as instructor, trainer, and then dispatcher you will do well. If even one of them is bad then your going to have a bad run of things. Best of luck to ya