Comments By Seppo

Was hoping to open up this topic again, especially for those who are new to the industry, as I am. Right now I'm deciding between two companies to begin my career with. Once I go solo, company A pays .35 CPM to start, .36 CPM after six months, and .39 CPM after a year, with a one cent per year raise thereafter. Company B pays .31 CPM the first three months, .32 CPM for the next three months, .33 CPM for six months, then goes up to .37 CPM at one year. I know first year pay is not as important as gaining experience, and the amount of money I make will be dependent on the loads I get and how hard I run. However, after the first year, company A raises pay by one cent every year, whereas company B only raises it by a half a cent yearly. I'm not looking to jump from company to company, I'd like to find one that's a good fit right out of the gate. It seems that after a few years go by, that half a cent would start to factory pretty heavily into how much I'm making yearly. (In addition, company B won't reimburse the entirety of my student loan, which is another $1,000 dollars I'd miss out on in the first six months of my third year of employment.)

When I got in touch with my recruiter at company B to mention these concerns, the recruiter told me that they do practical pay which can add up to (as Brett already mentioned) a ten percent difference. Money is not my primary concern getting into this line of work, but I am using it as one of the factors to help guide my decision. Wondering if any experienced drivers can shed some light here. I tried doing my own rough math, and it seemed like with running optimal miles at a rate of ten percent more, company B's pay would actually be better up until about five years, at which point the balance would shift to company A.

Anyone have any good advice or wisdom to share?

Just out of curiosity how long does it usually take from the time you fill out the application until you find out whether you are approved to attend the school. My recruiter is working on the file now. I've spent the last 3 years having to hold off on trucking b/c of some issues with my house but now that it's finally all settled I am finally ready to go for it. Just sent in another application to FFE. I was approved last year but don't remember the length of time it took to find out I was good to go.. I'm hoping to get rolling within the next few weeks.....mid Oct at the latest. Going to their 11 day refresher in Lancaster TX.

Like...a day. At most. I think it's a fairly quick process.

Once you have completed an initial period of supervised driving, you and your mentor will be team driving. Your mentor drives while you sleep, when you drive your mentor sleeps. The truck will be moving roughly 22 hours out of a 24 hour day. The 2 hours the truck is not moving you are pre-tripping the truck, fueling (either the truck or yourself), using the bathroom, showering, trip planning, etc. Not much time for exercise.

One way around this is to make sure you get on with a company that only does solo dispatch while you are training. Some companies will have you running team after a few days. With others, the trainee can only be driving if the trainer is in the passenger seat next to you.

Since I am only familiar with the "training companies" like Prime, Swift, CR England, CRST, (that I believe all run team; trainer/student), could you name a company (s) that will dispatch solo and hire entry level drivers? I only know of one in my area and they are really small, rarely hiring entry level trainees, it's hit or miss. And they do not advertise it.

Not trying to put you on the spot, just curious if you had a company in mind so that our friend could look into it.

Unless anything has changed since I spoke with a recruiter in June, Knight does solo dispatch, with the caveat: "In dire circumstances towards the end of training you might receive a team load." They are pretty large and from the research I've done online, seem to be a decent company to drive for. I believe all their training is done out of their Phoenix headquarters.

Can't speak for anyone else. Look around on this website to see if you can find any information (https://www.truckingtruth.com/paid-cdl-training/) and call some recruiters at different companies to see what they have to say.

Seppo is adamant:

However, whether I'm at fault or not, I absolutely do not want video taken of me shown publicly to any group of people for any reason.

No company has the time to show "Best Of DriverCam" for either instruction or laffs. Even any Incident recording sent in is checked for "usefulness" before it gets processed.

Better start looking for a local job.

If I was reading earlier comments correctly, the company showing the video of the driver eating the salad to other drivers in the organization. I understand they aren't compiling anything for a blooper reel, and I'm all for the proper usage of cameras for recording necessary incidents, but I'm strongly against companies showing video taken of drivers (without their permission) to use as examples.

The Salad Incident is from a Swift Video starring Richard Stocking (Swift President/CEO). A STOP event triggered the recording, and the driver was eating a salad at that moment. My post about 4 months ago.

And this is EXACTLY why I don't want a camera in my truck. If there's an incident and I'm in the wrong, by all means I'll accept the consequences, even if it's termination. I fully understand that the video may have to made accessible to people within the company, law enforcement officials, lawyers, etc. etc.

However, whether I'm at fault or not, I absolutely do not want video taken of me shown publicly to any group of people for any reason.

And yes, the argument is that you're on camera all day every day, everywhere you go. Which is true. But there's a big difference between being on surveillance cameras in stores and on the roads and having a camera pointed directly at your face eleven hours a day. I'm a safe driver. I don't eat while driving and I put my phone on Airplane mode so I won't be distracted by a call or a text or anything else popping up on the screen. But hey, sometimes I talk to myself while driving. Sometimes I sing. Sometimes I pick my nose. I'm a private person, and these are things I simply do not want to take the chance of being recorded and shown to anyone else.

Not trying to start an argument here (the last thread on this subject did not go well) just my personal opinion. You're certainly welcome to your own.

Once you have completed an initial period of supervised driving, you and your mentor will be team driving. Your mentor drives while you sleep, when you drive your mentor sleeps. The truck will be moving roughly 22 hours out of a 24 hour day. The 2 hours the truck is not moving you are pre-tripping the truck, fueling (either the truck or yourself), using the bathroom, showering, trip planning, etc. Not much time for exercise.

One way around this is to make sure you get on with a company that only does solo dispatch while you are training. Some companies will have you running team after a few days. With others, the trainee can only be driving if the trainer is in the passenger seat next to you.

I'm actually hoping to relocate to Australia and drive there someday. Happen to know what goes into it for an American driver? How would I go about getting my HR and HC licenses? And what's the job and pay like there? Do you drive all across the country or mainly stay around Sydney-Melb-Brisbane-Adelaide?

May Trucking:

" Don't forget we will also be offering automatic transmission tractors as an option for new drivers in 2015."

You could open a P.O. box near one of the terminals and use that as your filed address. You might try to talk to someone in the department for the PSD program or in reefer/flatbed/tanker ops to get some traction. If it's the company you want and you can be a good driver for them, it'd be silly for such a non-issue to disqualify you. Recruiters are so overwhelmed with applications that they are looking to qualify or disqualify people as soon as possible.

I wouldn't say my heart is absolutely set on Prime. It was one of my top two choices with Knight. Knight's not going to work for me, so I wanted to check with Prime before I moved down the list. I am looking for a company that has their base of operations more towards the western half of the country, and Prime appears to have solid pay, a decent training program, and it seems their drivers are more or less content. Just really hoping to avoid the in-cab cameras with Swift. Stevens would be an alternative, but it seems their pay is a bit on the low side and travel arrangements for their training program would be somewhat arduous for me. It seems like you only hear horror stories about CR England, and even on this site (where the idea is to deal exclusively with facts and be fair towards every company) some folks hint at having reservations about the way they operate, so I've pre-emptively ruled them out. Could do a company without a training program that hires new drivers, but I was hoping to avoid dealing with the hassle of getting pre-hires, finding a school, arranging for funding, etc.

The thought of using a PO Box or the address of friends who live in any of Prime's hiring areas did pop into my mind briefly at one point, but the recruiter specifically said "Your permanent residence and driver’s license must be out of the same state. We do not use secondary addresses." It was a strange thread to jump to, since I'd never suggested in any of my correspondence with him that I'd intended to use a separate address of residence from the one on my driver's license. He told me he'd be happy to process my file assuming I move within their hiring area. However that seems a bit ludicrous, as I'm not going to establish residency in another state in hopes of being hired by one company when there are so many others to choose from. Guess I'll go back to the drawing board. Hope I haven't rubbed anyone the wrong way with this post regarding my opinions of the other companies, just kind of silently thinking out loud. Appreciate the input Dude.

I've spoken with a few Prime recruiters this week, so I have some info to add. Even though their company sponsored training page here on TT says that they hire from all 48, I've been told that Prime absolutely does not hire from Idaho whatsoever, as they do not run freight up there. Also, other northern states such as Montana and North Dakota are very difficult, if not impossible.

I got a strange vibe from the first recruiter I talked to. I've spoken with recruiters from several other companies, and they all seemed very eager for me to fill out an application and come on board immediately. The Prime recruiter, on the other hand, seemed to spend the first ten minutes I was speaking to him looking for any reason to not hire me, before finally running my zip code in Idaho and telling me it's not one of their hiring areas. However, he still e-mailed me an application link and told me to apply, which I thought was odd.

I called back a few days later and got a different recruiter. When she told me that the issue hiring from Idaho was getting drivers home for home time, I explained to her that my residence there is basically a mailing address. My plan getting into driving is to just basically live on the road taking "home time" wherever I end up, saving money on a permanent residence and seeing different parts of the country. She told me Prime would be able to hire me so long as I'd sign something saying I had no expectations of Prime routing me through Idaho for home time, which would have been fine.

Called back a couple days later to verify this info before I applied, and it was flatly denied by the third person I spoke with (as well as my original recruiter when I e-mailed him asking about it). I explained my situation with taking home time on the road and not needing to go back to Idaho for any reason, and the third recruiter told me "the cost of routing a driver home to Idaho for home time is simply too prohibitive". When I tried again to elaborate on my circumstances, telling her that my plan for home time would most likely be to just get a hotel room in whatever city my home terminal ends up in if not taking my time off somewhere out on the road, she said "well eventually everyone needs to get home". I don't think she was listening to me.

I guess there are always extenuating circumstances, like if I got called for jury duty, and I'm sure it's a legal thing on their end where they simply cannot hire anyone with an address in a certain state. Still wondering where the lady who told me about the form I could sign got her information from. Just figured I would offer all this up there to anyone from a northern state who's hoping to drive for Prime.