Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Truckers

I totally agree. In my experience, and Turtle agreed his was the same, I was asked once whether i was going company or lease and it was strictly to determine who my fleet manager would be.

Prime does give the lease ops classes and pays them by the day for them plus gives them a free hotel room. They do this both for the ACE II leasing strategy classes and the Trainers courses.

The ACE II lease class discusses fuel economy and teaches them to read the lengthy weekly settlements. It focuses on reducing net fuel costs and IFTA taxes.

Prime even has a trucking accountant firm in house that makes it easier since they can grab the settlements and expenses straight from Prime without the driver needing to document everything regarding operation costs. the accountant fees are deducted through the Prime weekly settlement.

At Prime there is a lease op vs company driver culture where leasing is advocated by the drivers. Yes, Prime puts out the info and brags about profits during safety meetings or while waiting on hold during a call....but no one from management has ever tried to push me into a lease.

As a matter of fact, my fleet manager would change, so he has no intention of pushing me into lease or he would loose me.

I do agree there should be a mandatory waiting period before being able to go lease. It would probably allow drivers to be more successful as a lease later down the road if they so choose.

People forget the companies are offsetting the costs of new driver accidents by getting the insurance deductibles from the lease ops.

CK in the training diaries just stated Prime SLC is pushing leasing harder than I experienced.

Rainy you missed your calling, you should have been a lawyer... I will guess most lease ops have no clue what’s in their contract. Shame on them.... The stuff going on in Ca mainly pertaining to container haulers is somewhat similiar. The industry has brought some of it on themselves though.

hahah... i was supposed to be, but life happened. So i settled for History/Political science and Human Services instead lol

But I agree with you as well...most people do not read the contracts for anything. who can with the wording.

I know i was the only one in my PSD class who asked about the school contract and asked for a copy! Prime pays my miles to and from home and discussed HUB, HHG miles and more. It stated our tuition would be prorated based on a 1 year employment. So work six months only owe half. It also stated any future employer could oay prime $70 per week directly from my pay. Not one person in that class of 76 people asked for an explanation.

While everyone was signing, i was calculating in my head $3200 × 76 equals $243,000. times 4 weeks was 1 million per month minimum in tuition cause my class was the smallest they had. The classes have since doubled and the tuition has gone to $4700 (last i checked). Other parameters of rhe contract has changed and most still cannot tell me what is in it. Although one person told me there is now a non compete clause, i have not seen that myself.

Most will be sent home before attending school so those numbers are only potential numbers not actual, but still... i knew this was a business from the beginning and most seemed to never consider it at all.

Schneider requires you to have 12 months of OTR exp in order to lease a truck from them, which I thought was a pretty good idea considering you'll have better knowledge on how everything is ran by that point.

Rainy my hat’s off to prime for the prep work and support they give the lease folks. That is a rare exception overall. The big carriers are pushing it for one reason, THEY make money off of it. My company does the same thing. I hear horror story after horror story and I just shake my head. I don’t get involved in their conversations because they will only go away mad because they will realize they didn’t get as good a deal as they think they got. I am leased onto the company and I know my contract frontward and backward. The truck on the other hand I purchased. It was actually a repo and I assumed the note on it, which saved the other guy’s credit. However I know my terms very well as well as the early payoff information. IF for some reason I have a falling out with my company, I take my truck elsewhere. The bank has a clause a new company has to provide a letter of agreement as well as some financial information. They just want to know the carrier can provide the revenue and I actually will work there. Not unreasonable. My payments are lower than the guys leasing and I will own the truck in 2 years. They on the otherhand will not. However they are leasing brand new trucks and mine is a 2013. I get just as good of loads as the next guy or a company driver, because I work hard and have a great attitude. I just got to the yard this morning and as soon as I walked in the door my planner saw me and asked if I wanted to go back to Texas. I said sure. 10 minutes later I was dispatched and he is having a local driver load it and bring it too me at the yard.

Rainy my hat’s off to prime for the prep work and support they give the lease folks. That is a rare exception overall. The big carriers are pushing it for one reason, THEY make money off of it. My company does the same thing. I hear horror story after horror story and I just shake my head. I don’t get involved in their conversations because they will only go away mad because they will realize they didn’t get as good a deal as they think they got. I am leased onto the company and I know my contract frontward and backward. The truck on the other hand I purchased. It was actually a repo and I assumed the note on it, which saved the other guy’s credit. However I know my terms very well as well as the early payoff information. IF for some reason I have a falling out with my company, I take my truck elsewhere. The bank has a clause a new company has to provide a letter of agreement as well as some financial information. They just want to know the carrier can provide the revenue and I actually will work there. Not unreasonable. My payments are lower than the guys leasing and I will own the truck in 2 years. They on the otherhand will not. However they are leasing brand new trucks and mine is a 2013. I get just as good of loads as the next guy or a company driver, because I work hard and have a great attitude. I just got to the yard this morning and as soon as I walked in the door my planner saw me and asked if I wanted to go back to Texas. I said sure. 10 minutes later I was dispatched and he is having a local driver load it and bring it too me at the yard.

Funny thing is, Prime lease ops can take their trucks elsewhere as long as the new company agrees to pay Prime directly for the lease and excess mileage fees. Most don't read the contracts and do not know they are entitled to $250 breakdown fee and a loner truck. I just met a guy here complaining his truck has been i the shop a week and he cant afford an Uber. I said, "wow, you should have gone company, i ha e lots of money for Uber" . then i asked why he didnt get a loner...he had no idea what i was talking about.

And the contract is a "walk away lease" for Prime as well...meaning for any reason they can take their truck and that huge lease completion bonus that you paid into it goes with it.

Arbitration ALWAYS favors the company. Being able to bypass arbitration and take legitimate matters to court, is an excellent thing. If that means you have to lose certain perks, because a judgenement goes against the company, in a case that is unrelated to your performance, how good it that company, really?

Any company that pushes a lease program on rookies who have no clue, is a terrible company, regardless of the "perks" they may offer. Too many ppl are quick to slam the lease driver for being this or that, and they should have been smart enough, etc. Sure, some are dead set they will best the odds. But most are duped by a company that cares nothing about them, and only about their own bottom line. The same company that pays their company drivers decently with good "extras" is the same company taking advantage of brand new drivers that have zero clue. These companies can now be held accountable for their actions.

Well guess what....im still.investigating and reading. The Prime contract specifically says MO law AND/OR federal law.

It turns out that this ruling only pertains to the federal law, and the states do not have this same exception in the law. Meaning, MO law can still force the driver to arbitration.

And this demonstrates the exact point i was trying to make about pointless lawsuits and wasted legal expenses.

If that means you have to lose certain perks, because a judgenement goes against the company, in a case that is unrelated to your performance, how good it that company, really?

One that is aware of business practices and income to debt ratios. If you owned a company that had added expenses, what do you do? Reduce obligations. Would I lose my cpm rate? i seriously doubt it.

But if the company was paying out X amount of millions more than in the past, how are they going to make up for that?

Common sense says it will be less frequent raises, reduction in bonuses, a cut back in expansion and perhaps an increase in rates to the lease ops.

its not about character of the company, it is about bookkeeping.

And no, I dont want to lose my perks because some idiot signed a contract he didnt read or understand because he felt like a bigwhig signing a paper so he could feel like a boss despite having bad credit and no money.

As for the driver who filed the original suit, people can call him an idiot or whatever else but I beg to differ just a little bit. By the judge giving him just that little bit of an opening, it now opens up the door for a class action suit similar to several which have been filed against multiple companies regarding lease operators and the company's lost in every case and had to pay out to those drivers. Granted, the attorneys in those cases are always the real winners but it still costs the companies money. I'll be curious to see if in the near future, a class action suit follows and the driver from this one isn't the originator or involved with the class action.

Any company that pushes a lease program on rookies who have no clue, is a terrible company, regardless of the "perks" they may offer.

As much as I'm against leasing, I can't agree with that statement. If you're going to step up and accept the responsibility of becoming a business owner you'd better know what you're doing. Of course most people don't know what they're doing regardless of the business they're entering, which is why most small businesses fail in short order. Even highly experienced business owners can fail when taking on new business opportunities. That's why being in business is for grown ups - it's always a high risk endeavor.

Prime is like any other business. They're trying to grow and they're trying to serve their customers. If new drivers want to lease a truck and Prime won't give them that opportunity then they're going to lose those drivers to their competitors who will then be able to grow their fleets, make more money, and serve their customers better.

Prime apparently does a lot to try to help their lease drivers understand what it takes to survive in this business. But it's not their job to be anyone's babysitter. If you want to step up to the plate and take a shot at being a business owner, they'll help you make that happen. But they're not going to guarantee you'll be successful, nor should they. They'll give you the tools and the advice but it's up to you to understand the business, make smart decisions, and stay alive.

Most of the folks I meet that are leasing are in just that situation. Bad credit and no money. I not only put a sizeable chunk down, but I had a decent amount of my own money already set aside in a maintance account. I pay cash for everything. Sure the company will front the money and then add 15% onto the total. No thank you. I have the company place the order and I go pick it up and pay for it then. That way I get the company discount. The folks here are starting to understand me, they have told me I’m the rare driver. I make good money because I use my head and save where I can. Most people leasing have no clue how to run a business, and they still have a company driver mindset. The two are very different. The very first thing anyone should do if considering signing any contract is READ IT.