Comments By Josh S.

Did you decide on August 11 or was that the first class they could give you?

August 11 was the soonest they could get me in.

So my journey began back in April, when I decided that I was ready to be a driver. After working about 8 years in fast food industry as a manager, I was in desperate need of a change. I've always been more the loner type and have always dreamed of getting out and exploring the country and with no wife or kids, I will have nothing but time to invest. OTR sounds like a perfect fit.

I had looked into getting into trucking a couple years ago and had even applied to CR England. However at that time, I was simply not ready. Anyways, when I decided that I was, I started by searching for more info on CR England and that led me here. It turned out to be a very good thing it did. After reviewing the info here, it became clear that they were not the company for me.
I quickly decided on Prime for the following reasons:
1. Solo not team driving.
2. No charge for school if you stay with them for a year. Can't beat free. :)
3. Local activity. I see their trucks everyday.
4. Hands on training approach. I just learn better/quicker this way.
5. Good starting pay. Up to 0.42 cpm verse as low as 0.25 cpm elsewhere.

So after being delayed for a couple of months, lets say 'family issues', I'm now moving forward. So my progress so far is:

07/03/14 - Did my physical, and passed with flying colors
07/09/14 - Took and passed permit test with all endorsements except passenger. Thank you Brett.
07/10/14 - Submitted my application to Prime
07/12/14 - Called up Prime and we went over my app
07/16/14 - Received conformation and got my assigned class.

So now I'm just working to get all my ducks in line and waiting for 08/11/14 to arrive. I will try to keep this updated a I go through the process, however I will not be doing a day by day account, as others have already done so. I will try to fill in where there seems to be gaps in others accounts. Like the process leading up to starting orientation above. ^

Safe Drivers maintain space around their vehicles for the following reasons except:

guyjax I think you missed the "except" part.

The answer is D

Brett, on my phone, an LG-VM701 running Android 2.3.4, it all looks great except the follow and share buttons keep getting in the way of the menu and titles. They also move around a bit when I start to scroll. On my PC running Windows vista and chrome, everything is good.

Bradley you should look over this post as Daniel B gives clear breakdown of this:

exact-first-year-income-week-by-week

One thing I would like to see on the list is the company's turn over rate.

Thank you for the response Old School, it was very informative.

The "old glory days of trucking" are over.

I like to start by saying hello. I've been studying info on this site for about a month now, and love the atmosphere here. Thank you Brett! I've learned so much, and thanks to this resource, I'm confident that can and will make it in this industry. Anyways I have a few questions that I haven't found clear answers to and I was hoping to get a little feed back from the pros.

1. What do truckers do when bad weather hits? I thinking more along the line of the tornado outbreak a few weeks back verses say a blizzard. I can't imagine you would get much warning, and stopping in its path or trying to out run it don't seem like good ideas.

2. Detention pay. While I've seen may companies that claim to pay it, I have also heard many drivers say they have set for many hour and did not get it. So I left wondering what factors are involved.

3. Sick time. In all the list for benefits of choosing one company or another I've never seen anything about sick time. Most other industries always mention this. I'm assuming there must be some policies in place.(I'm referring to company drivers being 'forced dispatched', not o/o)

4. Log "cheating". After reading Brett's book, it would seem that cheating log books is/was common place in the industry. My question is, is this still the case with modern GPS and electronic logs? It seems that there may still be ways of "bending" the rules, but is it still common?