Comments By Joshua C.

Yesterday was one of the more joyful days of my life! I woke up at the Campus Inn at 0700, got on a shuttle to the airport at 0900 and was home in Florida by 1500. To stay. I don't have to drive another mile OTR and I couldn't be much happier! Prime has been a very good company. I recommend them to anyone wanting to drive OTR.

I took the job to get "recent" experience to qualify to get a local job here in Florida. Of the 3 companies here in my area, none of them would even talk to me about working there, (I've had a CDL for 21 years but didn't drive tractor/trailer the previous 14) until I had 1 year OTR experience. Well after 13 months I have done that and will be starting a job driving local when I get back from vacation in Jamaica on the 17th of this month.

I'll update the company I'm going to work for later, after I've hired on. I don't want to jinx anything yet but I'm 95% confident I'll work for the company I've been trying to get on with since I move to Florida 2 years ago. If not there is a Trader Joes DC opening next month in Daytona Beach that will be hiring over 120 drivers. Either way my days of OTR are over!!

It's been very rough on my family. I have a 9 and 7 year old that have been having a hard time dealing with me being gone for weeks at a time, only to return for 3-4 days and back out again. My wife is beside herself with my return.

I have much respect for you guys that do the OTR thing year after year. It's a lifestyle that is great for the ones that love it. For me it payed the bills at home but was not something I was finding too "joyful." But I made the most out of it, making "Fleet driver of the month" for the month of June in the process.

For now I've got to get unpacked and repacked for the 6 days we're spending in Montego Bay Jamaica, leaving this Saturday. I need a nice vacation after year of being gone, to reconnect with my wife and kids again.

Again I don't have a negative thing to say about Prime. They are a good company to anyone starting out there career and for anyone that's been doing it for years. (if you can handle the 62 mph company trucks you can't drive more than 58 if you want to make good fuel bonuses.) It's been a ride ya'all! I'll be talking to you from here on out as a "Local driver!"

I'll be doing the same thing here soon and prime for sure is a great company. I just want to be home too. Otr is fun but there are other things I enjoy doing that I can't from being otr.

Trifecta with only 13 points on road test. 0 points backing and 0 points on pre trip.

I apolagize about all the complaints, I'm naturally too self depreciating. It's what let's me do good. Thank you for your positive reinforcement everyone. And thank you for the website, it helped alot. Don't know what I'd of done without it.

Awesome job. Prime's PSD program is far far from easy. I give a lot of respect to anyone that endures the ordeal and acquires their CDL. It's far from easy but Man you'll be flying high for days trust me on that. It's an awesome feeling to obtain that CDL after what you went thru.

Sorry for getting back so late fellas, a few things im looking for down south is I want to be away from the snow, low crime, lower taxes, cheaper housing because im paying a arm and a leg for rent In CT lol good trucking location wanna drive van... Thanks for all of your feed back so far !!!!!

You're hard pressed to get away from snow, even in the south... Dallas has been getting a lot of snow just about every year I have lived in Texas, hill country around san antonio too... it's not as much as northern states but in an area where people don't know how to drive in snow it's worse than the north. when it snows in Texas the city it hits just about shuts down cause the people think it's the end of the world.

crime is gonna be a problem in any city no matter what part of usa. you want lower crime you need to live in small towns or middle of nowhere places, now if you can afford to live in nicer parts of town then you can find lower crime area in big cities.

lower taxes... don't come to Texas haha... taxed on just about everything in one way or another... see my post above for more info on that haha

cheaper housing... come to san antonio... one of the lowest cost of livings in the usa. ironic right... gas is cheaper here than most other states, apartment rent is ok, food is decently priced, etc but you still pay a lot in taxes and fees to city and state governments.

i don't know if san antonio is a good home point for trucking... don't care to much either cause i'm gonna give up my apartment after i start trucking.

hope this helps a little to stear you away from Texas... In my opinion it takes a certain mind set to appreciate texas... i don't have that mind set.

I lived in san antonio texas for 9 years and I never came close to seeing snow. I've lived in tampa, florida for about 5 years now and the winters are the reason why I've stayed I think. There isn't one. I've lived in 2 different places and neither one of them even had a heater. I had to bust out the portable heater 2 times maybe 3 for the entire winter. I like the Florida heat better then the Texas dry heat. It seems to be personal preference but both places are the best during the winter. I think Texans are much easier to become friendly with then floridians.

Tractor-trailer crashes off I-75 bridge into Manatee River Tractor-trailer crash

I was on I 75 all day and night last night and am about to get on it now in florida

At this point he stormed off the practice pad and said he's done. He got pretty heated real quickly so we had to go talk to a dispatcher. Looks like I have to talk to someone else tomorrow. I am unable to learn from someone who is constantly angry and heated. I'm not sure what else to do and I feel disastrously defeated now.

Gonna keep trying but thus guy is unable to teach while he's in a agitated state. I don't know how anyone can teach while in a agitated state ....

There were days I'd feel the same. Maybe not disastrously defeated, but definitely humbled and slightly discouraged. Nothing wrong with feeling some humility. It'll make you a better student. Your not the first person that had to switch trainers during psd trust me on that. Your almost there man. A lot closer then what you think. Just keep practicing and it'll click

I'll tell you though. You earned yourself your own truck. It's a great feeling. You should see how that feels if you ask me. Nothing like being the captain of your own ship. And congrats on finishing tnt . Awesome job

So I'm finished with the TNt portion of training and heading back for my upgrade or will be had a few things come up like they always seem to in this industry pushing it back a little but no biggie. Anyways I was wondering 3 things. Thanks in advance for replies.

1. Can I go back do the upgrade classes and run team with a friend of mine?

2. I considered running team with my first trainer I had, and I see a lot of people who choose to stay in TNt longer and was wondering wouldn't you make more money if you upgraded and went team as opposed to staying in training longer?

3. If I can and do go team what cpm would I get?

Yeah, your an A seat now. You can run team. People that stay with their trainer on the truck usually get paid a thousand a week. There are ads at the yard sometimes in drivers lineup where people will offer someone a thousand a week to run team. If you ran with your friend and you were both company, I want to say you'll make 50cpm

It's official. I passed my final test Saturday and this after I now have a brand new shiny cdl in my possession.

Congratulations man. Awesome job

I'll say one more thing too. Prime is very cool. They gave an older real nice 5 tries on the backing test then he finally passed. You won't be sent home if you show improvement. If you fail a test, they'll tell what you should have done afterward and what they want you to do. The next day just show them you learned those things. That is if you even fail at all. You'll be fine man. It is very hard. This is a very hard ordeal. I'll tell you what though, when I passed and got that cdl, I was on a high for days. It feels good and a huge weight is taken off your shoulders. It's an awesome feeling

I didn't complain about that to the people in charge. It was about the unprofessional psd phase. I don't want to slander someone online so I won't go into much detail about it but the behavior was unnaceptable and the leadership here agreed.

I'm not gonna be able to tnt with him and definetry don't want to. I'm just curious as to how I'm suppose to learn all of this in 2-4 hours on a practice pad when I was put for 3 weeks and practiced maybe 1 hour backing total. This experience is rough and I'm going to see It through but I don't want to be sent home defeated after everything I've put into this.

Your not going to learn it in 2 to 4 hours. It's not your fault that he didn't have you backing during psd, so if he has to wait a couple days while you learn backing, that isn't your fault and lesson learned for him. He made money each week you were on the truck with him during psd. He will make money after you get your cdl too and I almost want to say he doesn't have a truck payment the week you test. I spent 4 days practicing backing on the pad after we came back to test. Since I picked everything else up quickly he thought I'd learn backing 1 day on the pad. Very wrong. I practiced all day 4 days straight and still didn't feel confident. We pushed our test date back 4 times. Alley docking is very hard at first. I luckily didn't have to do that on the test day. It's either parallel or alley dock. My trainer had an awesome formula for parallel so thank god that is what I got. If you have to wait 3 days then test don't worry about it. I made 600 I think for passing. See how much you get paid for trifecting. I think he'll make 1200 if you trifect. Don't let him rush you. That was the beginning of our downfall in regard to my instructor and i. When we got to the pad and practiced backing. It's extremely frustrating and it's one of those things that there is only so much your instructor can do and teach because it requires practice practice practice until it clicks. Take your time and as many days you want. I was terrible and it took me 4 days on the pad until I tested. I passed on the first try though.