Potential Driver Dropping In

Have you talked to your father about all this?

Your father knows you better than anyone else on the forum. He would probably be the best adviser that you could possibly have, especially since he is an OTR driver.

Compared to a lot of people, myself included, you are in a very advantageous position to get some of the best advice and guidance possible.

Good luck to you! God bless you and your family!

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

Sound like a good candidate for something better than trucking to be completely honest..... But...... If you really want to drive, both Stevens and Prime have good equipment, APUs on all trucks, lots of miles and great training programs. Stay away from lease/purchase or your student loans will be the least of your financial worries. Trucking has been a good career for me, and financially rewarding as well. Make sure you're here on TTR often, and listen to your dad. If he's been driving, he knows. There's a few good companies in Colorado to start with as well, but you said you're looking at Prime hard. Good luck to you and keep coming here, we can help where your dad may not be able to!

 

Exactly what Joseph said.

USDA not hiring with that degree?

I get the wanderlust and the machinery vibe.

Also a great job for those that don't do well in office/retail environments.

Good luck !!

 

That's why I started! Entitled idiots were driving me to an early grave.

Nowadays I only see them on the interweb.

 

You asked for good and bad points regarding the companies. I will tell you what I know for certain. Prime has slow trucks and their management is extremely nosy. My son applied with them and they asked for his past pay history. He has an impeccable and verifiable work history in another industry before he came to trucking. He had a non-disclosure clause with his last employer regarding his salary, enforceable for five years. Even providing Prime with this contract wasn't good enough. Prime insisted he violate his contract and inform them of his past pay. First, it's none of Prime's business and irrelevant. Secondly, it speaks volumes about a company not only wanting but willing to hire a person who would readily violate a contractual and legal obligation. I told him to run from Prime. He did and is better off today for it.
I have a close friend who worked for Stevens. They pushed the lease, he bit. He seemed to make less with the lease than without one. Some weeks he would run close to 3000 miles and net less than $200 with no clear explanation of pay settlements. Dispatch would send him many miles on multiple occasions for pickup only to find the load wasn't there. He would often wait days for another load.
Good points....Prime has a good training program. Stevens will run you all over if that's what you want.
There are other companies willing to hire new drivers. I'd look into smaller companies. The smaller the better.
Good luck to you.

 

I briefly considered leasing with Prime after talking to a couple lease ops, but when I heard lease ops have to pay for reefer fuel, I disqualified them.

That's a ridiculous requirement to add on top of standard lease op expenses.

 

That's an extra couple grand per year that wouldn't be going in my pocket. I'd say that's plenty reason to disqualify a company from consideration.

Leasing is a game of pennies. If you want to throw money away because "it's only 2¢", more power to ya.

 

Ha Ha. You must think we use a ton of reefer fuel The .021 is before the fuel surcharge from the shipper. That is not what I have to cover if any. I gave you that number to let you know that reefer fuel as a charge (minus the shipper surcharge) to a lease op is only a fraction of our lease op expense.