Profile For Apex-One

Hey everyone! I wanted to start this thread as a way for me to document my time here at Prime as a Lease Op and for other driver to be able to ask questions! I'm a new driver eith no prior experience so I won't have ALL the answers, but I will surely be able to answer some and give my insight into what you're thinking!

I will be 100% open and honest with anything I say in this thread. This is NOT to sugarcoat Prime and make it seem like the best company out! I genuinely just want to be able to talk with other drivers, new and old, and gain some knowledge as well as give a little bit out!

I have been OTR for 8 weeks now. I'm a single 25yr old guy with no kids so I very rarely go home. The first month out on the road was a slight learning experience, I mean that in the sense of learning the way I THINK things SHOULD go while running my own truck. I genuinely love what I do and I have a true passion for trucking, always been interested just never got into it because of my other Career path of 12 years that I ended up leaving behind.

Being OTR is a ton of fun if you like to just be out and about! I absolutely LOVE driving so i felt trucking would've been good for me anyway. With Prime, ESPECIALLY as a Lease Op, you WILL be driving assuming you want to make your payments. Prime will 100% of the time give you the loads to make your truck payment AND put some money in your pocket, so if "Not being able to make the payments" is something steering you away, I promise you, they will give you the loads to make those payments. They gain nothing from you not paying on time, you'll just end up negative x amount of dollars the next week and will have to dig yourself out of the whole.

Let's talk about loads now. The loads Prime has supplied me have been amazing FOR ME! Remember, I'm 25, single, no kids, and barely ever go home so the money I'm making might not be good for you considering your situation, it varies from person to person. On average I drive about 2850 miles a week, some more some less. This is all dependant on how YOU run. My truck doesn't really stop moving. The longest time I sat (While Out on the road) was less than 24hrs and that was solely because a receiver messed up and made me reschedule. There have been times where I sat for a few days, and that's usually when I return to the Terminal in Springfield, that's mostly my fault and there being a lack of loads coming out of the Terminal sometimes. Usually, you can grab a load with no problem from the Terminal but weekends make that a bit harder and holidays aswell! This past week I'd been up in the Northern Central United States, Michigan and around that area and I didn't like it, mainly because I just genuinely didn't like the area. So I asked my fleet manager to get me away from there and bring me closer to Central US and work me out from there and sure enough, after I'd dropped my load up near Flint, I was headed back down to area I was more familiar with, no problems at all from the Fleet Manager.

Now I'll talk about what I feel like most people want to know and that's the pay. With the way I run my truck, I average just under 2000 weekly. This is with EVERYTHING taken out so that's 2000 deposited into my account. Prime Lease Ops take a percentage of every load, which is very nice in my opinion, BUT this can make for some bad weeks and good weeks as well as perceived bad loads and great loads! (AGAIN, what I am bringing home is great for me, it might not be great for you! I'm simply just sharing my experiences!) My best week I brought home $2652.57 and my worst week I'd brought home $600. The $600 pay week came right after I'd went home for the first time and was the first week back out from being home, so it makes sense as to why it was so low, I was a bit negative because I left in the middle of the week and had only done 2 loads which were decent.

I'd say, as a brand new Lease Op with no experience, this has so far been a phenomenal experience out on the road! The only real gripes i have are that I'm now learning, Shippers and Receivers do NOT value your time lol. It's honestly kind of crazy because most of them will have to pay out Detention Time, so you'd think, "If this truck is here AT THEIR APPT TIME, we should probably get them unloaded so we don't have to pay out of pocket for our negligence" But that is not the case hahaha, they don't care 🤷🏾‍♂️ Also, this is a given but my GOD are there some stupid people that are allowed to operate motor vehicles out there.... I have seen maneuvers pulled by people out on the road that I wouldn't even have tried in Grand Theft Auto, PLEASE BE SAFE AND ATTENTIVE!

This is really all I can think to type at this moment. I'm currently sitting at a Receiver waiting on my door and had the spontaneous decision to create am account and start posting. Hopefully this goes somewhere!

PLEASE ASK QUESTIONS AND SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE! I LOVE TO LEARN! Thank you all! And be safe out there drivers!

Oh also! Try to eat healthy! I was 120lbs when I started 2 months ago, let's just say i am NOT 120lbs anymore! 😅