Prime Flatbed - 2017 Info

Some do.
I've taken the skinny roads through OK because thoes small bails can stack up to 14'2" and not be over gross. What rancher isn't going to want another 70+ bails.

 

Prime's cdl training program will be better than any driving school you will go to.

I'm not much on mega carriers but if I was just starting out I would go through Prime's school & training, do my year there & then assess my situation to see what I did next. Good luck to you.

 

You sure about that? I hauled hay far more than I'd ever care to admit at Melton. And I'm sure this board would consider them a mega...

 

Small carriers aren't gonna get you your CDL, much less pay you while you are getting it..

 

This.. OP, I looked at all angles going to CDL school going to various different training carriers.. All in all Prime is the best bang for the buck.

Say you go to a CDL school, you pay out of pocket or take a loan for $5-10k. That's absurd and in most cases you will be lumped in with a bunch of other students and not get much seat time..

Then you try to go to a company who will hire a no experience driver and guess what. You are sitting in a truck getting trained for a month or two. It's not like you show up at company after getting your CDL with no driving experience and then you get handed the keys to a truck... You still have to get trained.

Now if you go with Prime, you get your CDL and worst case if you leave early you owe them a bit over $4k. That's already cheaper than any CDL school..

Now add to this, you get paid $700/week once you get your CDL ($100/day) However you have ability to earn more. I just finished my TNT training and several weeks I made over $700 because the $700 is based on $5k team miles. If your truck does over 5k in a week you get more money. I made $850 one week in training and almost every week it was a tad over $700.

Now training time.. I started my TNT 8/15 and I'm now finished, so about 2 months. However there is the week of at campus training which is not paid and PSD training which I was out 2.5 weeks. So all in all My total training time by the time I get into my own truck is roughly 3 months.

I have 8 weeks of pay from Prime as a TNT student. The 1st check was just the last 2 days of a week + my trifecta bonus. My last week I was off the truck before the week completed so I was only paid 5 days.

During that training time I was paid $5,5k.. Meaning I recived my CDL and Prime paid me to do it. Even if I quit Prime today and had to pay them money for the CDL, I'd still be money ahead vs going to a CDL school. I can also bet you that at a CDL school you probably wont get 600 miles in a week where as I was driving 600 miles a day very often.. That miles per day results in a hell of a lot more experience gained vs sitting in a class room watching videos with 20 other people.

I'm sitting at home right now waiting for my ride back to Springfield to get my upgrade. So I'll be going back to get my own truck and start being paid by the mile.

Now compare that to going to CDL school. 1st you have to take a loan or pay out of pocket. You don't get paid while you sit in class. You sit in class for 30-45 days and you get the exact same CDL I have but now you still have to find a company to hire you and you still have to sit through their training program and you still have to pay for the CDL..

I can't imagine why anyone would not go to a mega like Prime for their 1st year and get their CDL.. It just makes zero cents to me because on top of this Prime's pay isn't bad specially for a new driver and even if some other company pays you a few cents more per mile for you to show up with the CDL in hand. Well you still paid $5-10k to get that CDL.. So did you really make more?

As for going to Prime for flatbed. I wouldn't go that route as a company driver. Unless someone shows me I'm wrong, I don't think a company driver will make over $1k/week average pulling a FB. I think to make decent money as flatbed there you need to lease.. or at least that's what it seems for flatbed.

I went to Prime to do flatbed but I couldn't get a FB trainer so I went refer. Refer gets miles way easier than flatbed. This means training time is faster but you also make more.. Sure refer sucks for a lot of reasons, but it's probably the fastest way to get your miles & get into your own truck.

What I'm doing, is I went refer for my training, I'm going to drive refer for the winter and after 6 months if I still want to do flat bed, I'll switch then and maybe go lease.

 

You update the CDL to your home state. Now I did hear wise tales of people who had rented PO boxes and transferred their address there in MO. I actually tried to rent a PO box at the Prime terminal to do just that so I wouldn't have to go home to transfer my license but they told me I couldn't use their address. However nothing stopping you from getting a mailbox at a UPS store or something like that and using that address assuming it flys with the MO DMV.. You'd have to try it and find out.. Worst they could do is tell you it's not a valid address..

For the record a guy in my class was from MA and he just upgraded to his own truck. With MA they were giving him 6 months to transfer his license. The reason being MA wont accept a transfer and you have to retest.. (at least that's what he said) so might be worth asking how long they will give you to transfer a MA license because this all might be a non issue if they give you 6 months.

For me I had 30 days to get mine transferred.

 

Someone posted yesterday they use a PO Box in South Dakota as their address since they really don't have a house or home anywhere. As you know, no income taxes in SD.
I'll look for that post and tag you. OK, found the thread and tagged you.

 

MyDakotaAddress.com, Mail Forwarding, Mail Receiving, South Dakota Residency

SD is using the RV crowd to inflate their population numbers so they get more federal tax dollars. They nod and wink if you want residency there with out actually living there. You can use a service like the one above, but you have to go to that state and stay in a motel and get a receipt for 1 night to show residency.

There is a similar place that does the same for FL, but Fl isn't actually trying to let you do it like SD is..