Prime Trucking School-my Experience

Woke up and off to the training pad...also known as Prime East. Roll call at 0830. Today's goal is pre trip. Spent probably an hour working on pre trip with my buddy from PA. While going over pre trip, an older gentleman walks up and purely out of respecr, I acknowledge him and ask him how he is doing. He pulls me aside and tells me that he is a trainer and that I was the only one that looked him in the eye and asked how he was doing. This totally confirmed everything prime has told me so far-every move you make, someone is watching you. It's a big ol' job interview. After about 5 minutes of talking, we decide that we are going to partner up for my training. He takes me back to the terminal , talks with all of the necessary people, I meet my fleet manager Jeff and off we go to the pad together. Worked on backing for about 2 hours. Did very well and he was very impressed with me. Then off to shifting and driving around the block. About 4 hours of being together, we are assigned a load to Oklahoma City. Returned to the Campus Inn, showered, loaded the truck, checked out of my room and off to the terminal to pick up the load. So here I sit, waiting for our load to get here. So after 7.5 days, I moved to Missouri, got my CDL permit, went thru orientation, practiced shifting and backing, drove legally on roads, and now starting my adventure. It has been one awesome experience and I am looking forward to continuing this path. Until next time...

Good luck! Sounds like a great beginning.

An excellent read. Best of luck to you. Looking forward to more.

And I'm back! I just returned to Springfield MO from my 2 week training period. Quite the adventure and for the most part, loved every bit of it. Started off leaving Springfield with a load to Oklahoma. Then from there to Texas, Colorado, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arkansas and back to Missouri. So long story short, lots of driving. Luckily, my trainer here allowed me to do 90% of that driving. Every morning we did a pre trip including air brakes. Because of how well I progressed thru this program and my training, my instructor allowed me to start doing things like bumping a dock, hooking and unhooking from trailers, Using the QC, paperwork, etc. Basically all the stuff that I would not have covered until the second portion of my training.

If I could give everyone a big piece of advice: take something to do with you. Like tablet or phone with music, netflix, books, etc. You will be in a truck, with somebody you do not know for 2 weeks and you basically cannot leave their side. There is not enough "away" time from your instructor when you are stopped at truck stops. Now I am very happy with my instructor, don't get me wrong. But I need some "me" time every once and awhile. Pandora and Netflix saved my sanity. Also, make sure you tell your instructor that you are getting out of the truck. Every night I talked with my fiancé for an hour or more. One night, my instructor didn't realize I was no longer in his truck (too involved with candy crush on his phone...no joke) and he went to bed, locked the truck and closed the curtain. When drivers hear knocks on their doors, they assume its solicitors or lot lizards. So it took about 20 mins to wake my instructor up to let me back in the truck. We laughed about it afterwards but just keep that in mind. So now I'm iin Springfield. I test tomorrow and hopefully trifecta (cause its an extra 250 in my pocket and 850 in my instructors pocket) theni have a sleep study Wednesday, and my physical Thursday. So if all goes well, I will be back out on the open road Friday! I will donmy best to keep everyone updated. I do appreciate the comments and support I've gotten so far from here.

Till next time...

Lookin forward to the next update!

All right! So lets start with Monday night. Spent about 4 hours on the practice pad working on different backing maneuvers. We finished that up around midnight and I slept in the truck until about 6 o'clock in the morning. Tuesday morning my instructor showed up and off we went to sign in for my test. Luckily for me I was the second one on the list, so I was the second one to test. The downfall of this was that it was raining cold and dark still when we got to the testing pad. Started my test which starts with pre trip and I got lights , driver's door, coupling, and in cab. I was very confident in my pre trip because how prepared I was. The only thing I missed were the dash indicators; left turn right turn high beams 4 ways in my in cab inspection. Then I did my backing maneuvers. Lost no points on that. Then it was road test time. The moment that you know you cannot screw up. I lost total of 18 points , but thats still passing. So long story short, I got a trifecta! So after you test, there is a lot of running around to do. First you must go to HR and be hired. So you fill out your tax paperwork for your home state and she gives you a checklist of things to do. This includes, new ID badge, TWIC card, DMV , and passport card. When you finish all of this, you return to HR and drop off the paper which she signs and becomes a ticket to get a free hat from the store. Then you're free. Congrats on being an employee. And that's exactly what they told me. Wednesday, another very low key day. Started the day off with a meeting for my sleep study. They basically just gave me information of what to expect and what to do. Went back to the truck to hang out and relax until that night. That night I return to the campus inn, and started getting set up for my sleep study. If you do have to take a sleep study, do not expect it to be a good night sleep. You have about 10,000 wires going every which way on your body measuring everything. I went to sleep around 10 o'clock and was woken up at 12:30 a.m. At that time they put the machine on me to test that. Basically they want to see side by side how you sleep with and without this machine. The next morning around 5:30 a.m. I was woken up for them to pull the wires off me and to leave. I returned to the Millenium building because I had a physical that morning. This is now Thursday. After completing the physical, it was sit around and wait because until my study results come in , they would not issue me a new medical card. About 4 hours of waiting, and I have my results. I take them to the office and have them sign my medical card. Because it took so long to get my results , I now have to wait another day to go to the DMV. This means the truck still sits and no paycheck is made. Friday morning, my instructor takes me to the DMV to hand in my medical card because the DMV must have a copy on hand. We return to Prime and go to driver lineup to try to get a load out of Springfield. We decided on a load coming from Kentucky going to California but it is stopping here in Missouri. The downfall to this is that the load will not be here until early tomorrow morning. So this means another day of waiting around not making a paycheck. This is the reality that truck drivers face everyday. If the tires aren't turning you're not making any money. So now I sit here, trying to not go insane because I am so bored haha. Hopefully tomorrow we get out of here early without any issue. Until next time...

When starting out do you run your full 70 for the week or how many hours do you clock per week? And how has that been adjusting your body to that?

Im considering prime to get my cdl and become a driver i have a friend and we want to team together do you recommend prime for that im 20 turn 21 dec 3

Hey Christian, GREAT posts and perfectly detailed! I am in day 3, Wednesday, of the first week and your daily descriptions have been spot on. Needless to say I could not WAIT to read ahead and get a feel for the coming days 😀. For those of you considering cdl training with Prime or other companies....... CONSIDER PRIME! They have a well oiled machine of a training program here! Christian, like you I passed all 4 learners permit tests on the first go around. This is where I wanted to add in my own comment about that testing. The High Road Training Program...... I can' t say enough about how good this program is! Having said that, you can NOT just take the practice tests, memorize the right answers, and think you will pass the cdl permit test. You MUST understand WHY those answers are right. There are endless ways to ask cdl questions so if you don't have an understanding of the concepts behind the answers, well, get to know them. Make sure you understand what you are reading in the High Road program. If you have any questions, the guys that run and/or follow this site respond wonderfully! (ok enough plugs in there guys?) HA! Thanks for the time you took to share all these detailed steps in your progress with Prime, greatly appreciated Christian. Can't wait to read about the next adventure!

So I want to apologize for not getting back on here very recently. So lets start from departing Springfield with my license to now: Left Springfield and started phase 2 of my training. That is driving team with your trainer for 30K miles. The truck has to go 30K not just you driving. And it goes by dispatched miles which they give you. So for 3 weeks I jumped around the continental 48. About 2.5 weeks in My trainer, wanted to show me that even though you are on the road a lot, home time can happen. So he let me go home for a night with my fiance. We were 24 hours ahead of schedule and about 2 hours from our delivery. The following week, I went home for Thanksgiving. Spent a week at home. That right there shows how family oriented Prime is. I returned to the truck on December 1st and continued my training. As we speak right now, i have about 1300 miles left of my 30K. I will be going back to Springfield sometime on Wednesday the 23rd to upgrade and get my own truck. After getting my truck, I will be returning home to my fiance for about 5 days. Again, very family oriented company. Until next time...which will probably be a post/picture of my truck next week!

Also, I really appreciate the comments and that my adventure has been beneficial to new drivers choosing a company to go with!