Not Sure What Company To Go With

Carly,

Hey I went thru CDL training through a military veteran program school instead of Paid CDL but if I did Prine's increasing in training miles is an absolute turn on if I can use that phrase. I know money is important. But who wouldnt want to be properly trained. Train as you fight you want a lot of miles once you're solo. Expect a lot of miles training. Best of luck but I think you should look at training as a positive.

I am turning 21 this month and I am getting ready to apply for a company that will pay for my cdl program but im not sure what company to go for, at first I wanted to go to swift but you now have to be 23 to get on with them after that i wanted to go with prime but i learned recently that they updated there training to 50k tnt miles and i think that's just them trying to get more money out of new drivers now i am thinking of rohel but im not so sure about them either any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated!

No problem

Do you have the driver pulse app? If so you can see whether companies declined you or are looking at your applications.

Welcome

There are many great company sponsored schools. My son started with WIL-Trans this past February, and he is 21.

Apply For Paid CDL Training

Paid CDL Training Programs

• Trucker's Career Guide: Choosing Your First Truck Driving Job
• Article Category: Finding The Right Truck Driving Job
• Forum Topics Tagged "Choosing A Trucking Company"

High Road CDL Training Program

I know brett was updating the list of companies that provide paid training. Good Luck. We have many experienced drivers that will give you solid advice.

I have applied for the paid cdl training about a week ago and havent gotten any replys yet im still hopeful though! im going through the cdl training program now thank you for the links i will look through them! how does your son like WIL-trans so far?

just downloaded it and filled it out thank you for letting me know about it!

CDL:

Commercial Driver's License (CDL)

A CDL is required to drive any of the following vehicles:

• Any combination of vehicles with a gross combined weight rating (GCWR) of 26,001 or more pounds, providing the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of the vehicle being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
• Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing another not in excess of 10,000 pounds.
• Any vehicle, regardless of size, designed to transport 16 or more persons, including the driver.
• Any vehicle required by federal regulations to be placarded while transporting hazardous materials.

OOS:

When a violation by either a driver or company is confirmed, an out-of-service order removes either the driver or the vehicle from the roadway until the violation is corrected.

Wil-Trans:

Darrel Wilson bought his first tractor in 1980 at age 20, but, being too young to meet OTR age requirements, he leased the truck out and hired a driver.

Through growth and acquisition, Wil-Trans now employs over 200 drivers, and has a long-standing partnership with Prime, Inc. to haul their refrigerated freight. The family of businesses also includes Jim Palmer Trucking and O & S Trucking.

Okay I would like to thank everyone who has applied so far I was wrong about prime and I will try to get on with them when I turn 21 later this month I guess I just got into a bad mindset on it after reading a lot of comments about it thank all of yall again for the help!!

Wherever you decide to start at, don't go in there with these preconceived notions, I read somewhere's, or someone told me's.

You know nothing about driving, the industry, or life yet at 21 years old. Keep an open mind, learn all you can and read all you can on this site. Your end result could be the start of a great career at a young age.

A point to consider on Prime's extending their training to "make more money"

2. Until you drive at least 6 months for a company, they lose money on you. Many places its almost a year before a company even breaks even on you. From cost of hire all the way to benefits, the cost of turnover PER DRIVER is $11,000 - $12,000. So if you get fired the company is not only parting ways with you, they are saying "It is worth the loss of over $10,000 to not have this driver work here anymore and replace him with an unknown driver who may or may stick around for a year and cost us another $11,000." This doesn't even include the training companies that have invested even more in a driver. Successful Mega Carriers and even successful smaller companies don't get to be called "successful" by throwing away profits and not taking termination very seriously.

Jrod's Assessment of the Cost of Driver Turnover

Donna just recently received her one year safe driving jacket from Prime. If one year of accident free driving was easy, they wouldn't give out jackets as awards.

Perhaps Prime extended their training to avoid the $10,000 they lose for each driver who doesn't make it to the one year break even point.

As far as I'm concerned, if Prime wants to "make more money" by making sure that their drivers are successful, good for them. In fact, sounds the company for me.

Yeah, Prime's TNT phase is long. When I transferred from another company I elected to do an abbreviated TNT phase so I could learn how Prime does things. I'm glad I chose to go out with a Prime trainer because, even as a driver with experience, there was a lot for me to learn.

I'm not going to try and say it's a great experience, but you do gain a great amount of experience and knowledge.

I got a bad mindset from looking at all those posts about it and I really should have thought about what I was okay with before reading I really shouldnt be upset with a guarentee of 700 a week minimum for 40k then 800 after thank all of yall for helping me! It really means a lot

I got a bad mindset from looking at all those posts about it and I really should have thought about what I was okay with before reading I really shouldnt be upset with a guarentee of 700 a week minimum for 40k then 800 after thank all of yall for helping me! It really means a lot

Carly, the official position at Trucking Truth about so-called "reviews" on other sites is that they are written by people who could not cut it for one reason or another. So they tell the world and blame the company for "no miles", "cheating on the paycheck", doing "illegal" things, "forcing" drivers to drive when they shouldn't, and so on.

The trucking industry is not a comfortable place to work; there are pressure and responsibility. And the real reward goes to those who keep a "can-do" attitude so that their DMs can depend on their top-drawer star drivers for pickups and deliveries.

Carley, I see you have changed your mind since your first post in this thread, but here are a few other ways of looking at the longer training period.

You are right. As a driver you could be making more money right now this minute by just getting hired and hopping into the driver’s seat and start hauling right on the first day. The pay would be better than trainee pay, wouldn’t it? How far do you think you would make it starting trucking like that? Would you agree that at least some training would be advisable? How much? 1 day? 1 week? How many miles? 10? 200? Of course those numbers sound ridiculous. It has to be more than that. But how much more? What knowledge and experience in trucking does a newbie have that they can dictate how many miles that should be?

You are also right that keeping the trainee out longer before upgrading would help the company “get” more money – though likely you are right in a different way than you intended. Sure, as Errol mentioned, a few hundred bucks could be saved for the company per trainee. In the grand scheme of things that’s practically nothing for the company. But that’s not the money the company is looking to make on a trainee over the course of time. It’s the added benefit of having a safer, more experienced driver on the road that will hopefully be less likely to make the mistakes another rookie driver with less training would make. In the long run you are on the road more – not burning your hours at a shipper or receiver scratching your head trying to solve rookie problems; the truck is on the road more – not in the shop getting repaired because of rookie mistakes; the company is increasing the volume of freight they are hauling as a percentage of their time owning of the truck. In the end it’s win-win for everyone. You will be better trained and on the road turning more miles and they will get a better return on their investment in both you as their driver and the truck in the form of less downtime and fewer avoidable expenses. That makes them stronger and more competitive as a company which also contributes to job security for you if you strive to be a productive driver.

Prime used to have that training number set at 30,000 miles, but somewhere along the line they ran the numbers and calculated that 50,000 would be more beneficial for whatever reasons that only they are really privy to. They have been around a while and many active members here drive for them and speak highly of them. They probably know what they are doing. Companies that make a habit of sleighting their employees don’t tend to grow into the large, successful operations we see in any of the mega carriers.

The way I feel about training is the more the better. When I went through Prime it was only 40,000 miles and I could not wait to get off of my trainers truck. I thought this was entirely too long and felt like I knew everything to be successful. Boy was I wrong. When I left his truck and upgraded I was lost for about the first month. When the harsh reality set in that I was on my own I was like a deer in headlights. I honestly at that point wished it was longer. The phase will fly by I can promise you that. Just embrace and and be a sponge, ask tons of questions (there are no stupid questions) and learn all that you can. You got this.