Profile For Sammy Clue

*cap = Crap

Me personally? I would do it. Money is money and doing the cap runs will show the company that you can be trusted to run whatever in return will come back to you in another good run.

I get ask all the time to do those under 50 runs and as a result I spend no time sitting staring at a parking lot and not making money.

But that's just me.

1. I am not making a decision on a company based on the fact of speed governors alone. As I have said and had conversation with many people, I understand the reason for governors. But to govern 1 type of vehicle and not the other is ridiculous.

*The Government - Lets make the biggest vehicles go 15-20mph slower than cars/trucks, thus forcing all trucks to maintain their position in a single lane which will cause miles and miles of nothing but a line of trucks traveling the highway in the right lane. Which happens to be the merge ON lane AND the merge OFF lane..

Makes sense yeah?

2. I don't want a local job because I currently don't have a home and practically live in the truck except when I stay with a friend for a few days every few months during off time. Seeing as I have been offered over 12 local jobs thus far and non of which pay even close to the .29cpm I make now. Plus having a house payment, utilities, food, gas, etc.. while working a local job would be a few step backwards from where I was in automotive.. by a couple hundred dollars backwards.

3. I am not really sure where to go from here. I guess i'll just go with Trans Carriers pulling another dry van seeing as they offer the most pay out of the 51 I spoke with. Still a month to figure out a plan.

Hello everyone! Hope all is well in your world.

So as I grow closer to being completed with my contract with PAM I am rally bothered by the fact that of the 51 companies I have spoken to, ALL of them are governed at 65mph or less but travel roads set at 75-80mph. I really enjoy trucking and have thought for a very long time before ever getting into it. But after driving a slow truck (63.9mph) for a year now, I can tell you it really is a horrible feeling (To me anyway) to be constantly holding up traffic, getting forced to always slow down for merging traffic, forced to stay in the fast lane after allowing slow traffic to merge and them not allowing me to get back over, cars constantly passing on the right when I move over for a emergency vehicle on the side of the highway and being passed by every car/truck on the road everyday for 10-11 hours a day.

I have searched long and hard to find a company that isn't doing the slow truck thing and have had 0 luck. I mean, I don't want to be doing 75-80mph down the highway, But if I could just find a company that would do at least 68 when traveling highways set to 75-80, I could be out of this "slow truck" crowd and feel a bit safer I'm sure.

My main question is..

Are there any companies that hire out of North Carolina that are known to meet such standards? Or will I be forced to do a LP just to have the freedom to do 68 or better?

Will I spend my career in trucking, traveling the country at 65mph?

Oh and as far as those "You pay for out of route miles" goes? I personally know a driver that was in FTA in Asheboro with me that is still with PAM. He went 244 miles out of route because he input the wrong route into his GPS and PAM was like "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?", "Please don't do that again..."

Not saying they won't charge him if he does that again, but he made a mistake and they understood and forgave him.

Hello. I am finishing up my CDL training here in NC and test Monday. Some may remember me as the police officer from NC who signed on a year ago when I was preparing to retire. Anyway, I am in school under a contract with P.A.M. Transport. I am a very loyal person and so appreciative that PAM has given me a chance to learn and drive for them. However I am hearing horror stories about pay and how they treat their drivers. I don't take everything I hear as gospel but I am curious as to the opinions of others here at TT. I really don't want to jump ship after my year but rather grow with the company and do a great job and become a mentor. Then again I worry if my efforts will be appreciated. Am I making a good career choice? Oh, and there is a rumor going around here at school that if you miss an exit ramp with PAM during your route you have to pay for each mile you go pass the exit off the route. Please tell me that is not the case.... thanks. DG

I've been with PAM now for almost a year, went through the training school in Asheboro, NC last year. Started officially driving for PAM on 4/20/15 and as I grow closer to ending my contract period I am starting to doubt looking for a different company really. I get good miles each week, I make decent pay each week, I drive a good running truck and my DM is a amazing person who does all he can to make sure I keep running.

I work hard (Well as hard as you can driving a truck.), I don't argue when I get a load I don't really want to do like NY or NJ, I just do it and it really pays off. I am to a point now where my DM will ask me where it is I want to go next and I get to choose my next run and will even call me just to "shoot the s**t". Granted the pay isn't as good as a lot of companies that I have spoken to (And I have spoken to well over 40 companies in the last month searching for better pay) and it seems the average pay for SOLO drivers is about 36-38cpm for driving dry van, 38-42cpm for Reefer, 42-45cpm for non haz tanker, and 44-48cpm for flatbed. Which does put PAM on the low side of pay for sure seeing as I get .29cpm right now and come MAY 15th it goes to .32cpm. But I like my DM, I have grown use to the runs/routes, I know how to handle the shippers, I get good miles and I don't have a hard time getting home when I want.

Never-the-less, if you put forth the effort and show you are a valuable asset to daily operations, you will get miles and keep a pay check coming in. But my DM tells me stories about a lot of the drivers he alone has on his board that are just incredibly lazy, fussy drivers who just complain about things and can't be trusted to get loads to there locations on time. So those are the drivers that don't get loads and don't make money and end up quitting and they owe Driver Solutions/PAM money for breaking the contract.

All in all, I am not disappointed with PAM. They covered schooling/training, paid me while in schooling/training/orientation/while with mentor. Got a guarantee during the first 6 weeks or so of $500 a week if it was slow (Which I only got twice, always gotten over 500 a week since) when I got upgraded to first seat, and I been running steady ever since.

Hope my ramblings help, Good luck to you!

Yea, that was pretty cool. Enjoyed watching that! Sometimes you just wanna do that on some of these roadways during those crazy days.

Well I can speak for PAM somewhat. The company as a whole is okay. They have their problems just as anyone else im sure, but they are a "Training" company. I am about to finish my 1 year contract with them come April 20th and though I will miss my DM, I am looking forward to finding a new company that will treat me as good or better then PAM has. I get good miles and average 2600-3200 miles a week.

If you go through their sponsored schooling you agree to 1 year of driving for them and 6 months team within that year.

If you quit or get fired before the 1 year you are obligated to pay $6000 back to Driver Solutions for braking your contract.

Check em out, hope others charm in with other options.

https://www.truckingtruth.com/paid-cdl-training/pam-transport/

A small log I typed to give am idea of what to expect.

https://www.truckingtruth.com/truckers-forum/Topic-7732/Page-1/drivers-solutions-pam-transport-training-log

Good luck!

Don't worry so much about memorizing the bleed down test as of right now. Focus on the entirety of the Pre-Trip so when you get into class and watch someone do it you can run it through your head and follow along. When you get into a truck the Air Brake test will become clear.

Thanks for the input guys. I was thinking that there had to be a lot more to it than what was mentioned. Also talked to the cat while driving my shift today so not really concentrating on the conversation to be able to ask all the important questions.

Will push this one to the side and move on to the next.