[PrimeNewbie]

I'm a desk clerk at a motel. I deal frequently with truckers daily. The other day, I met a trucker who said he could get me on at a company (Prime Inc) without having to pay for my CDL class. He also told me about O/O and that the company, after training, offers truck leasing if you don't want to work directly for the company.

I spoke to a recruiter today, she told me that, if I was accepted and decided to work for the company, I would earn .30/mi on my trips, then a + $0.01 added on after every 150,000 miles. The other option is to take the truck lease and work as an O/O. Doing that, they offer another two options, working by the mile ($0.80/m) or working by payload, they offer 72% earnings of the value of the load.

I want to see why the more experienced truckers out there think about this and what you recommend I do. I am, most likely going to go ahead with it and get my CDL and see how it works. I'd like some warnings if any of you have any cautions for me about this program.

Ryan.

[cat can do]

I hope this helps a little. When I was looking to get my cdl I talked to a few of the bigger companys and all of them reqiure you to stay with their company for a set amount of time. If you choose to leave before you honor that time you will get a GREAT BIG BILL to repay them for your schooling. The price did vary a little but most were over $5000.00 and it is not so much the schooling you are paying for it is the amount of time the company has invested in you this is a tactic they use to keep driver turnover low. Like I said I hope this will help you a little.
Good luck and I hope everything works out for you.

[davekc]

Run the other way. .31 cents per mile is exstremely low. As a o/o @ .80 per mile, you will go broke.

[PrimeNewbie]

Yeah, the recruiter explained to me about the CDL training cost if I bailed out. If I bail out before six months, I have to pay for the bill for my CDL. After six months, if I bail, I pay half of it. Its up to a year before I dont have to worry about the cost of the CDL.

I was planning on doing the 72% thing. I want to be an O/O anyway so I can run my own schedule and work as hard as I need to. It just seemed like getting that percent of the payload, along with having to pay for my own gas and the lease payment would work out better. I only hope I get enough runs per week to take care of those costs and personal costs. I have two children and a girlfriend to send money too. Think I'll make enough money? I don't mind working harder to make ends meet. Can't be worse than what I'm making now. ($6.00 @ 40hr/wk)

Thanks for the advice. Throw in anything else you might want to add in. I need all the tips I can get.

Ryan

[pellgrn]

I think DaveKC is right on,my knowledge is limited but ya my want to ask if there is forced dispatch,how long can you go out of service or take 3-4 days off [at home] what do you pay? qc,insurance,escrow.

[jg]

You might want to check the OOIDA website to look at comments on PRIME.
General rule I've heard is don't lease from the company that gives you the loads. After you work for quite a while and the truck is getting paid for, all of a sudden your loads decrease, you don't make a lot of money, you can't make the truck payments, you lose the truck and you are out of a job. The lessor has the truck and re-leases it again.....and again......and again. Seems to me you might want to have a provision in the lease that if you are available to work and still don't get enough loads to make XXX dollars, then your monthly payment is put off for a while.

[PeachyPoo]

Another thing you are going to want to look at. DOT is changing the regs to if you have less then a years experence, you will have to have more training with the company you are with. Some of the companies are set up to deal with more then a few weeks. Prime is a good company, and their trucks seem to always be moving. Do your homework, and make sure you can get your years experence incase you want to go else where after the year.

[davekc]

Just a side note on Prime is that OOIDA has been involved in many lawsuits with them. For specific details go to www.ooida.com
Hope that helps
Davekc