Profile For Patrick D.

The thing to keep in mind is the economics of the industry and the competitive environment between the companies. Remember that every company out there is pretty much running the same trucks on the same highways. They're paying the same for fuel, hauling the same freight from the same customers under the same laws. The profit margins are very thin - about 3%. So companies have to run their trucks as efficiently as possible to even hope to make a profit.

So you can be sure that every company out there has tons of freight available for their top drivers. If a major company has been around for many years then they obviously they know what they're doing. They're able to get enough freight to run their trucks efficiently.

If a driver with 6+ months of experience isn't averaging 2500+ miles per week then something is wrong. It could be a dozen things:

• Slow economy
• Slow time of the year
• Poor dispatcher
• Change in management
• Change in logistics software
• An unproven or unreliable driver

...but I'll say this.....it's either the driver or a problem that can and should be resolved.

you mentioned an unreliable or unproven driver may not get the miles that more veteran, reliable drivers will...starting out does a driver generally get saddled with a heavy load to see how he handles it and backed down a little if he proves unreliable? Or will the new guy have to prove that he's reliable before he starts to get 2500 miles a week? I would assume it would depend on the company/dispatcher and load availability...but i really have no clue, that's why im asking haha

Talking about all these high mile runs...I've heard quite a bit about running refrigerated giving you the opportunity to make longer runs and in part based my decision to go with central on those longer runs. Is that accurate? do you tend to get longer point to point runs with refrigerated loads?

Seems like a good price. That's about what they go for on amazon too.

Maybe I should try to find a prime recruiter to talk to before I make anything absolutely final. Do you have any suggestions?

As far as not waiting for them to call me, I didn't wait long at all for any of the others haha...they called within 24 hours of me saying I was interested. But I haven't gotten an email or anything from prime with a number to call so I don't know what to do with that.

That's a pretty big difference. I will probably get pretty annoyed with it too, and for you to pay to have a unit installed on a truck that they own is pretty silly. Mine will just have to idle. Strangely, when I applied to several different companies...prime, cr England, central, knight, PAM, etc...prime was the only one that never got back to me. I've never been convicted of a crime in my life...never so much as gotten a ticket in over ten years, and I'm pretty well educated and have a nice employment background. Odd that I never heard back from them.

They're going to shove leasing down your throat, just don't listen to their bull****.

Yeah, I'm not interested in anything like that until I know for sure that I'm even going to continue my career past getting the training paid off. I'm pretty sure I'll like the job though, I love to drive and I love exploring. It seems like you liked central ok, can I ask what convinced you to make the jump to prime?

I've talked with different recruiters from a couple different companies and done a pretty good bit of research and I've decided to go with Central Refrigerated. I'm still trying to figure out which day would be the best for me to start school, but I know it will be the middle of the next month out in salt lake.

After doing my research through this site, man...this site helped me a lot so thank you SO MUCH....and doing some personnel research about their equipment (nice and new) their freight (refrigerated, so generally longer hauls) and my lack of desire to spend any significant amount of time at home (long story) I think they will be the best fit for me. I really don't want to drive team and I like to drive at night so I figure the nature of their long hauls will better afford me to haul overnight and get some things done during the day.

I saw a lot of reviews about a lot of different companies and in the end I decided to disregard all of them and go with what I thought would be the best choice for me. Obviously people are going to have grievances that are personal that would never have any effect on other employees, some people don't want to do the work the job requires, and some people just flat have a stick up their butt for whatever reason. I'm pretty excited to head out to salt lake, a first for me...one of many in the coming months I'm sure!

Does anyone else work for central or has anyone else been through their school and stayed on the campus there? Just looking for a little insight of what to expect. People, living conditions, instructors, etc. thanks a lot! Make way for another rookie!