If you think Prime INC is a good company think again let me tell you my experiences, back in April I had started orientation at Prime INC, me being inexperienced at the time (as most are) I didn't know much about trucking, but wanted to it so I want to prime to start orientation it went Ok I guess. But after that the truth about prime's evil face started to show itself.
1) TRAINING
This period at prime is ridiculously long, to long, I mean: by the time you hit the 2nd month of your training (unless you have a good trainer) your ready to drive by yourself because by then you have the basic of how to drive truck on your own you know how to back, do logs, shift, read maps, get in and out of shipper and receivers safely on your own.
Scam part is when you become a trainee you sit with a trainer 60 something thousand miles before your can drive solo (are you kidding me) and in some cases it takes 6 months and some of these so called trainers about 80% them here, don't train you all they do is sleep in the back while you drive its like team driving but you not getting team miles, it seem like the company, dispatcher and trainer is benefiting from it and not you, the most you make is 600.00 even if you felt as you drove more then that, and your constantly spending ton of time away from home to get that 60 thousand miles done so you can drive alone. A lot of trainees can't last with one trainer I had to go thru two because my first one was a just plain evil and didn't teach me anything I basically learned as I was driving team with him on my own, but it took a long time before my 60 thousand miles where up and that took 4 1/2 months I know some people that went thru 5 or 6 trainers and it took them 6 months to get the 60 thousand miles done, that a long time to be spending with trainers.
Home time
Home time here is a joke you and they don't get you home on time I needed to be home on thanksgiving one time and I had the load that was going to get me near my house in st Louis and the dispatcher wanted me to swap this load with another driver in Nebraska who had a trainee in his truck because the dispatcher thought I was not going to make the delivery on time (as if they gives me loads where delivery times are possible to make anyway) so I had to take the load and swap it with the driver and take it to the yard in Springfield and when I got to Springfield I was sitting there for a couple days before got home from spring field, I got home on thanksgiving afternoon I could have been there a day earlier if they hadn't had not made me swap in NE and that's just one case, I had tons of others.
They make it completely impossible for delivery times, if you get a load as a company driver with a lot of miles on it you will be running like a slave to get it there on time, I found myself driving extremely tired or illegal on logs a lot to get loads to where they need to be on time and in some cases couldn't even stop to get something to eat or use the restroom with out the dispatcher complaining that I maybe late with the load, (with that annoying quilcomm buzzer) sometimes they will have you swap loads with other drivers, or they will take that load away and give you a crappy one with crappy miles.
I didn't drive over the road I stayed in the Northeast of the country as if I was driving regional in that area, basically the whole time I was driving otr with prime solo, I saw Utah once and Texas twice, that's the farthest west I would go has far as otr driving is concerned which is why my checks was 300.00 to 400.00 per week even though I run like a slave on a lot of loads, I was making more as a trainee in some cases, then I was driving alone and that should not be.
This treatment went on for the whole 5 month I was driving solo for them and I could take this treatment anymore and I left in January of last year but then they still get you as if the corrupt company doesn't have anything else better to do, but as soon as I left they wrote all kinds of lies on my DAC report, one was they said I had 3 preventable accidents, so I got a copy of my Dac from Dac services and it showed the 3 equipment failures.
Prime had to find someway to get me so they put it to where it looked like 3 preventable accidents on my report instead, one example, one day I had to pick up a empty trailer and the right side door the trailer had a little damage on a lot of hinges.
I put that info in the quilcomm, and told the dispatcher, but they don't care all they care about is the freight, so when I got to the shipper to pick up the load I went back to open the damaged on the trailer and one of the hunges gave way and the door of the trailer was about to come off I told the dispatcher this he told me I had to scratch that load and take it to a trailer shop to get it fix when I could just drop that one because I didn't want it coming off while I was driving but he kept on telling me this trailer shop is close but it was 50 miles from where the shipper was, I went to so would shut up but when I got to the trailer shop the door just finally came off, they fixed it and now I see that they put this on my Dac report as a preventable accident (are you serious) that just one the other two equipment failures where put on there too and they put those to on my DAC report as preventable accidents as well, this kept me from getting hired by another company I wanted to drive for, I had to get with Dac Fix and they got with Dac services to get it fixed.
Stay away from them I wouldn't recommend prime to anyone, I don't like otr driving but prime is good at breaking drivers down.
To anyone and to those drivers that want to defend Prime, the scam liars, ask them this, do they have a life, how much home time they get, I bet you they say every month and make about 800.00 to 1000.00 per week, I'm now at Schneider National (wonderful company by the way) and make that same amount on a dedicated account and get home weekly and in some cases nightly.
As I said before stay away from prime, no time for yourself, no life, when I was with my trainers as a trainee they didn't go home and they both ran like slaves, when I started driving solo with them I ran the same way, if I'm going to run like that, I might as well make money, but I didn't, and I find that, that's the way they treat you here, you a piece of meat in the seat to them and as a company driver they try to break you down and treat you like crap to tempt you to lease, don't do it because you will be putting yourself in more of Prime's bondage and if you dare leave them they will tear up your Dac report and say all kinds of lies about you to keep you from being hired by someone else, sad but true.
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