Profile For Ryan A.

Yup. Trying to survive my first few weeks.

Well good luck. Hang in there and see you on the road

Can any tell me which is better as far as pay, miles, and benefits... I want to be able to get MILES! Central is bigger but I also like Prime benefits. So can anyone help me decide which would fit me...

What I've learned on TT is that reefers go on longer runs (miles). As for pay & bennies, it's mostly six of one and half a dozen of the other.

I see. Aren't you at Swift right now?

Can any tell me which is better as far as pay, miles, and benefits... I want to be able to get MILES! Central is bigger but I also like Prime benefits. So can anyone help me decide which would fit me...

thanks guys for all your answers... See y'all on the road

Ryan, I did Swift's Academy in Memphis in December. The program should be very similar: Swift Academy, Memphis, TN

Good luck!

it's tda and I got the app too lol

So I'm starting Swift training on March 16th in GA. Then that next week I'm going to Utah for the REAL training. But are there any pointers or advice from student or veteran truckers about swift and training? Any and all will help

Are you with tdi or tda I can't remember which one... I did the same.... Just study study study and don't ever act like your better then anyone else.... O and study lol if you haven't started already I would start the High Road Training Program as soon as you can

So I'm starting Swift training on March 16th in GA. Then that next week I'm going to Utah for the REAL training. But are there any pointers or advice from student or veteran truckers about swift and training? Any and all will help

Cool. Thanks

I believe this is the same company that is now part of Prime in their advanced fleet program. You will pull a lot of Prime trailers and do business with many Prime customers. From the way I understand it, you will basically run the same loads and have access to the same workload as a Prime driver, so mileage opportunity is there.

Looking at Henderson Trucking as an option... Anyone got any thoughts on Henderson?

@Carter @Old School thanks. I think I will stay away from that. I wanna run hard but I don't think it would be for me

Ryan, unless you are a really good business person you need to stay away from leasing (In my opinion), especially as a rookie who doesn't really even understand the trucking business at all.

And if you do happen to be a really good business person, then I think you will be able to see through the false hopes that are hung out there like carrots on the end of a stick to keep you chasing after an elusive target. We have some lease operators in this forum, but I have yet to hear any of them producing any gang-buster results that they want to tell us about.

It is a tough business with slim margins, and the whole leasing concept was conceived as a way to pass off some of the surprise expenses to the operator and away from the company's balance sheet. In other words there is considerable risks involved, a few folks are lucky and beat the odds, but with a 3% national average profit in the trucking industry, if you are any good at math, you can see there are a lot of losers in this game.

So what are your feeling on the success leasing? @Carter

Sure Ryan. I came in with my cdl already in hand, so I'm not one to comment on their cdl program. I will say this about the company though; in my limited amount of time with them, I am very impressed with how they conduct their business.

If they told me something (from my recruiter, to the people in orientation, to my trainer) then that is what happened. They shall have one of the longest training programs I've seen. This could be a positive, or negative, depending on your point of view, but the way I see it is that you will be in control of an 80k lb rolling building that folds in half at 60 mph (thanks to Brett for the analogy). Don't you think you should get as much training with an experienced person as humanly possible before taking that on solo? The fact that prime agrees tells me a lot about their organization. And they pay well to train you.

I actually made more than I was promised because we ran more miles than expected. When was the last time a company paid you more than they said they would?

I'm sure that others will have great things to say about their companies, but right now, in my honeymoon phase, I don't think I could have picked a better place.