Swift or Prime for training?

Honestly I do not think Swift is as bad as people make them out to be. Sure their pay is low especially for new drivers but they are the largest trucking company in the country and have the most terminals and good equipment. Being in Phoenix I don't know how your home time will work out at Prime.

 

I started with Swift's flatbed division. Overall, I had what I'd call a fair experience there. Not perfect, there were times I was pretty pissed off, but it was nowhere near as horrible as these posts would make the company out to be.
This industry has a lot of whiners, and their own merits usually don't make up for their tendencies to whine. I've seen it with a lot of highway drivers (they don't last in sitework), I saw it at Swift, I see it at my current company (Navajo), I see it all over this forum.
Now I'm not saying you'll never have a gripe with Swift or any other company... on the contrary, I expect that you will. But, take what you read on here with a grain of salt, because there's a good chance you're not getting the full story.

 

Hey Odins is that millington tn.? Where you will attend school?

 

I have a good friend who works with prime. And he is very happy. No complaints. So, on that note I have 11 different companies offer me a job. So I finally chose Prime. I start on may 12th. Yay. It's about dam time. I got my permit here in cali. with have my full CDL in two weeks. I hear better things about Prime than Swift.

 

That's good to hear someone took you on.

 

If he is still looking for a decent company. Knight Transportation is ok. And they have a big yard in Ontario,ca. He could sign up for OTR, Innermodel and local. They also have a refresher cource for those who have a CDL but not a lot of experience. 1-800-489-2000 I used to drive with them some time back and no complaints about how they treated me. Sure beats Western Express lol. I can't believe I was even concidering them. I just had to be a little patient. 11 companies in 2 days offered me jobs.

 

Did you run OTR with Knight? if so where are their hot areas that they like to run? Any NYC?

 

I ran OTR, innermodel and regional. They have refers now. so you should be able to NYC easy. Especially Grimmway Farms outta Bakersfield,Ca to southern new jersey and NYC. That's if you llike the long hauls. I love them. Seems to be the only way to get that 600 mi a day in.

 

If a company offers NYC, I'd venture to guess it probably wouldn't be too hard to get on that run, seeing as so many drivers have this "boogeyman" image of NYC.. just like when we were kids, our parents would tell us that the boogeyman would get us if we didn't turn our lights out and go to sleep right away (because, you know, nothing makes it easy to sleep the way a mental image of that does when you're a kid), so we hear all these tall tales about NYC, and people take that #### at face value.

 

Except I've been to NYC more than once and have no interest in going back.