Team driving with a lease driver

I think @FullMetalJacket needs to chime in and help you. The stuff @x1Heavy is saying is so far off base with regards to working at Prime. @FullMetalJacket is a trainer but also runs team with one of his best students. He can tell you about how it works with pay and all as a company team.

By the way, if you want to team at Prime, you have to find your own team driver to team with. Prime doesn't force team.

 

Not necessarily far off base, Im not talking about working with prime.

When someone is new to trucking in life, they need about a week to learn how to ride in, sleep in, live in, etc a tractor sleeper cab. The trainer is there to teach him all that. If it means the truck not put away miles at night then so be it.

In my time 2001, FFE insituted a rule that all brand new students are not to be made a team driver nor run at night. Those trainer trucks are to run as a solo for dispatch purposes and expected to drift from truck stop to truckstop learning, polishing backing and trying to sleep in those bunks.

I have a little touch for drama in life and not everyone can appreciate that.

A full team is a pair of experienced drivers, who have had some time together which is about a month or a little less to really weld into a partnership and roll that truck 8000 miles a week with NO interference in sleeping patterns, problems and challenges are met and over come by either driver. Students are NOT that level of varsity. Not even close.

I think there is a trend that students come into the industry straight from school and are made a team out of nothing running the trainers work so that the company and trainer will in some way profit from that. Any GOOD trainer will take a week, maybe two to take things very easy, dispatch as a solo (Trainer gets salary, what does he care about pay? The focus is on the student)

Crawl and playpen in kindergarden first before walking in elementry and running in big kid school.

Remember I talk about the people Never the company unless I am taking a potshot at them. Here I see a student who cannot sleep. Therefore he cannot drive. Team is impossible right now. Forget it. Prime has nothing to do wtih any of this.... yet....

Companies have enjoyed the possibilty of exploiting students who know nothing about what it means to add 3000 to 5000 miles to a lease tractor run by a person under contract to a large company who will also profit. That has to stop. There has been already stories on here where students have felt used by trainers who do not intend to train but rather go to sleep while the poor pup runs the overnight deliveries.

My thoughts are motivated and driven by the experiences Ive had. Both as a pup and later in life as a trainer from time to time. I do not talk just to talk. I know what I am saying. Listen to it. There I remind you and anyone who does not like to deal with me, to click on my name to the left, select ignore in the little box and that is that. easy. I should not have to remind some of you who have thousands of posts.

 

Lease driver pays you on a 1099 scam,if it all.
Another scam companies love to provide,two drivers for the price of one.

 

Lordy......think everyone has the best intentions here, but not even close to giving you the information you actually asked for....let alone work at/with Prime to be familiar with options. But, regardless, they are trying to help in their own way, nonetheless. Good folks abound here. What I love about it. @x1Heavy one great guy with huge amount of experience dating back to, I believe, the stone age.....when wheels were first invented. He has seen just about everything & a wealth of knowledge that can only be gained over eons.

Way I read it, you are asking for your options to run team AFTER you complete your training period....? LOL Seems pretty clear to me. You already know the pay arrangements while training.

Bit of FYI in order here. I'm a unusual case of a "hybrid" driver at Prime. For the last 4yrs, I've been running trucks for a "true" owner op's small fleet that are leased ON TO Prime running under their authority. I am certified as both an instructor & trainer, & currently training my LAST new greenhorn student before purchasing my own new truck. (Former student going to come back from company side & run with me. Going to be two retired old farts, showing the young guns up & how it's done.... & how to have a blast while doing it). I have had students in the past that wanted to continue to run team with me after they completed their training for a variety of reasons & I have agreed to do that in the past. Some wanted more experience, others a more thorough understanding of the business side of operating a truck profitably. Still in regular contact & good friends with most of my former students.

I have my own negotiated compensation agreement w/individual I work for, but I am paid THROUGH Prime's payroll service, as a company individual.....so I'm still eligible for all company benifits (i.e. medical, 401k, etc....). The students that continued on had their own agreement w/him & were also paid through company in the same manner. So, forgive me if I not up on Prime's current exact rates.....doesn't apply to me & not always current on it.

But, on to your question about some possible scenarios.


Straight company team.......,

Pretty simple. Everything to truck is split between the drivers on miles, fuel bonus paid to truck. Additional milage bonus if certain amount of milage exceeded. Each driver has whatever individual safety bonuses they qualify for. Not sure, but that split may or may not be able to be adjusted by agreement between you based on one having more experience or not.

Team with a true O/O or L/O .....,

Going to be very similar to my arrangement. You both come to an agreement on your compensation & they pay you through Prime using their payroll service that is available. Will be W2, benefits & company status.

Not sure if anyone 1099's? If so, that would be completely at your discretion & risk.....and you better know exactly what your getting into. Consider fact you have to cover all your own taxes, unemployment, medical, retirement....etc yourself in any compensation negotiations.

Teaming with the right person will absolutely gives the potential of making much more, for the plain fact that the truck can run 24/7.

Finding that match of work ethic, morals, personalities, neatness & hygiene, however......... whole 'nutter situation & diffent topic! LOL

But, it can.....& has been done. Have had a royal blast & hilarious times with a few past students continuing on as full co-drivers, while both pulling down very serious incomes & some of the highest top ranked miles under the entire Prime fleet.

Hope this helped a bit & wish you the best of luck, whichever choices you make & whatever you do.

Peace Brother











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Recap is simply getting back the hours on your books from the 8th day before, if not resetting. Every successive day, you get back whatever hours you used the previous 8th work day.

Not necessarily 8.75 each day. Could be more or less....depends on what you actually used that day.

The 8.75 you are thinking of is a strategy that THEORETICALLY "could" work in a perfect ideal world. But, in practicality, mostly impossible due to the exact situations you mentioned.

The "ideal" 8.75 per day would have you running that every day perpetually, never running out of hours. Pretty much impossible to achieve on a regular, consistent basis if OTR. Waaayyy to many variables occur to preclude this....

Dedicated or local.......may be more achievable.

 

Not to mention the limitations on Dispatch's appointment times and assigned miles. Driving a 8 hour day every day is going to make you late and they will demand you to call in and explain yourself. If you consider a 24 hour logbook, today midnight to 8am you finished your 8 hours. Sleep ten, wake up 6PM and put on another 6 hours to midnight tonight. Thus a 14 hour day on your logbook. You will get today's 14 hours back in your 8th day from today recap. I cannot expect you to actually sit in the truckstop all the way to midnight before driving again trying to stay in your endless hour scenario.

Note, Im not picking for a trouble, I usually maxed out the hours during the week knowing the recap will feed them right back to me. If I have to stop a day? Great, that gives me a chance to stay human and clean up, laundry, errands etc.

 

Yep. Run my max all the time, every time, whenever possible.

All the assorted variables usually always leave time enough coming back to work with. At some point or another, a customer delay will set me up to catch a reset, especially if backed by a time lagged next dispatch, or enough time till next pick up.

 

Would all depend on what two parties can come to an agreement on.

Glad to see you're thinking about actually learning the business first, before potentially leaping off a cliff. Sounds like you have your witts about you & some semblance of common sense that is very much lacking in today's world.

 

I worked for ADESA in Little Rock as a crew boss for CDL trucker temps a crew of between 10 to 20 souls at times depending on how many. Sometimes as few as 5 when not many trucks for sale.

In 2009 I drove a beautiful pete 379 sleeper cab through the barn after spending two hours babysitting it because it's part of making sure it does not get abused. I think it was a '96 Pete 379 long nose, 525 CAT and all the usual three panels worth of gauges etc. Fuse stack this high in the passener side all the way to the windshield with additional switches for cooling fans etc. Sleeper interer was a big bunk and a couple closets, desk etc.

I fell in love with that thing. And I swore if I had the money I would put in the bid for it. The auctioneer sold it for 32000 all in as it was.

I wished I had 33K that day whoever got it at 450,000 miles and a 13 speed double over etc is a very lucky and happy buyer. So whoever you are running that white under red pete here in Arkansas, enjoy that dam thing LOL. I bought a tractor once long ago for 41K and loved it but this pete had it all for 10K less two decades later. And like only 5 years older than the midroof 120FLD I bought. Crazy eh?

Maybe one day. But not just yet. I have too much interference from medical stuff right now.