Prime or Stevens

There is also a grocery warehouse of some kind (Been a while...) back behind the TA/Petro Prime delivers to. As far as getting out, between Tyson in Amarillo and Swift in Cactus, plus any number of other locations, should not be a problem getting a load from home time.

 

It's all he wanted. He wanted to get into his own truck as quickly as possible. He had been laid off from a job in the financial industry and was going to be in danger of foreclosure.

 

I was the same way, get it all done as quickly as possible. As a result of taking no home time, They gave me more than two weeks before I picked up my truck and went solo. I only took about 10 days.

Basically I left home the last week of March, tested my CDL the 1st of May and finished all my training miles mid-July. So, pretty much 4 months for me too.

 

Are you confusing the Frozen warehouse by the flying J? Not directly behind it, but you can see it from the lot. I've picked up there before.

 

Yeah, U2. Like I said, it has been quite a while! Thanks. I suffer occasionally from "half-zeimers"... it's not ALL the time, just half the time!

 

I parked at Pilot in Ft Worth last night for a 10 hr break. A Stevens driver parked in a no parking zone blocking the driveway near the fuel island. Once again some lazy driver blocks traffic exiting the pilot for over 8 hours. Only time I see this is at pilot when the drivers are so hell bent on not taking the time to plan a stop. They must think it's ok becasue they are tired or out of hours. This is what the old timers are saying" what the heck is happening to the industry?" nothing but a bunch of selfish spoiled children who do what ever they #### please without consideration or courtesy for the next driver wis passing through. across the street at Cabella's was tons of parking and a nice restaurant to eat. Guess stevens was too afraid to ask for help!

As for Prime They can do no wrong! This Company has won every award from the American Trucker Association for being a safe and healthy place to work. Seriously, these guys have perfected student training. Robert Lowe figured out how to pay two inexperienced guys the same amount as one guy with several years experience and get twice the bang for his buck. He is slicker than black ice on I-44.

P.S. Pop loves to expose those greedy corporate giants, when they suck the life out of thisn industry hauling cheap, freight at low wages. They have created revolving door at the Springfield Operations Center. for every driver that quits they mus hire 1.2 drivers. This is normal at all the Mega fleets like swift,prime, knight, covenant, jbhunt and those who must run adds in the weekly truck driver books found at your local TS.

 

So you're trolling over here now. Whatsa matter Pop-too-fat-to-get-in-the-truck-Martian? Can't stay away from cheap fast food or the buffet?

Let everyone know that PopMartian WAS a Prime wannabe who couldn't make it...

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/members/29668-popmartian/

 

I take exception to your comment delineating Stevens as the 'lazy driver'. I have seen just about every truck company doing exactly what you are describing... in just about every TS in the country!
The problem is lack of parking for the trucks out there. Most drivers cannot decide when they start their 11 for the day...that is often controlled by shippers, weather and dispatchers. We cannot all shut down at 5pm and nicely take our spot in the local TS.
I agree that it's annoying to find isles, ramps, scales and fuel islands blocked by trucks and I've had to wake up more than one driver so I could get out and begin my driving day.
It's not the mega fleets that cause this. It's the tree hugging, insolent and ignorant NIMBYs that make it impossible for Truck Stops to operate any more, much less a new one to be built.
A prime example of that 'crime' is Los Angeles. One of the largest cities in the world and it has only the TA's in Ontario to serve it. If you head south out of LA, it's 126 miles to the Pilot on the border south of San Diego!
18 million people served by those two truck stops.
Can you imagine two truck stops serving half of Canada?
If we had more parking, drivers wouldn't be running out of hours searching.
I had a 2300 drop last night in Dallas. Took them until 0345 to finish, and then I had to go to five truck stops before I found a slot to park.
That wasn't lack of planning on my part. That's lack of co operation on the city's part.
I'm tired of seeing people blame Prime, Stevens, Hunt or others for things that affect ALL of us out there.
Now as I recall, this thread started out asking Prime or Stevens?
Both are good companies to train and start with. We can't all be super truckers, buy a Pete and come out the gate as an O/O.
Ya gotta crawl before you walk!
Sure these companies go thru a lot of drivers. THEY TRAIN! They take the new people and get them started.
There's going to be a lot of turnover. Nature of the beast.
And just so it's clear...I remember drivers complaining about the new drivers back in the 70's when I started.
Nothings really changed.

 

There are no good companies that will hire you with less than a year. THEY ALL SUCK!

In my case, I trained for free with Schneider. I did my year, stayed a few more and moved on.

If someone isn't willing to commit a year to trucking OR pay them back if you decide you want to leave then you don't need to be driving.

Option 1 Pay 3 or 4 grand for training. THEN get hired by a junk company. If they don't work out move on to the next junk company.

Option 2 Sign a contract for a year with a company for FREE training. If it doesn't work out then pay them the money and then go work for a junk company. If you enjoy this work a few years of unblemished work history is all you need to advance to the next level. But unfortunately this industry is made up of junk companies and they have no shortage of people willing to live in a truck for a month while working five days a week.

 

My over indulgence to prop up the sign that suggest driver look hard before signing that contract at prime.

I wasted 200 dollars to find out prime (*&^&#37. I drove up there with an open mind from Dallas. by 9 am I had enough crap from the company. what really pushed me over the edge was the crap about BMI.....I choose not to participate in a scam that they use to plunder the drivers wages.

Well So much for them, two days later,I made a phone call and was in a Big Truck Driving again. I thought Prime was a stand up outfit, sorry My Bad! we learn from experience.

Last week I pulled a load from Dallas to Twin falls, reloaded and drove to Indianapolis, reloaded and drove to Dallas, It took 8 days to run 4500 miles. I doubt if I was working for Prime I would be so lucky.

Now I know this year I will gross over 50 k compared to 30 K at prime.