Profile For Truckin Along With Kearsey

Team Pay Prime

I saw an actual pay stub there. Primes bonuses for miles is weekly.

Read the training diaries. Do a search for Roehl. Apply everywhere.

With freight the way it is, companies are changing their normal training/hiring processes. Prime is no longer accepting recent CDL grads. They are only taking students who go through Primes CDL training. And the numbers being accepted has dropped dramatically

No company is going to accept someone with a recent suicide attempt. And two years is recent

I understand and empathize. My father and sister both committed suicide. But medication or not... That fact alone will keep you from trucking for several years. Just getting off the med won't help.

Good luck. Be safe. Stay in your meds that help.

Trucking is very stressful and could have jeopardized your stability.

All of the reasons for stating to just go ahead and get the class A make sense. One thing I wonder is a common theme that is talked about on this thread is a CDL going stale. So, if a person gets a class A license, but is working a job driving a class B vehicle, wouldn't the issue of the class A going stale be the same? Companies that hire class A drivers without experience would still require a refresher course or CDL training for the class A, something that we have seen here plenty. Driving a class B vehicle is nothing the same as driving a class A, so the experience doesn't really count for anything with trucking companies, other than it's good work history.

Ryan... Refresher courses are different at each company. Prime, for example, brings in a stale CDL holder and gives them an evaluation. If they pass. They go into training. If they fail, they get the refresher course at no cost to them. There is no need to do a full DOT CDL exam. That is a major difference. So again... If you are already paying and using your time. It is still better to get the CDL A, rather than just the B.

As a CDL Instructor, I see this a lot. I stopped teaching straight line back and start with parallel now. The straight back is in the parallel for short distances and allows the person to learn. The larger turns of the wheel during parallel gives them more control and builds confidence

You didn't come outta your mother's ****** backing a trailer. Give yourself time

Time yourself with a stop watch. Compare your times to yourself and see the improvement.

my truck is governed at 73 MPH, which is a nice comfort speed for me on dry road days.

Just what I want. A new driver doing 73mph and feeling comfortable while doing so.

Out west there are 80mph speed limits. Would you do that downhill also?

Keep in mind, an "accident" and "incident" are 2 different things.

I'm guessing the driver mentor meant "not DOT reportable"... Meaning No Fatality, Injury. Or Tow. With minimal damage many companies will choose to report it as an "incident" which is a lesser offense. However, even an "incident" with higher damage costs could be recorded as an "accident". At Prime, if you maintained a good record, they sometimes agree to remove an "incident" that helps you in gaining better employment elsewhere.

Don't be too concerned. I knocked an axle off a trailer my first month pulling into a fuel lane. Many a Trucking Truther has learned from my mistake and pays more attention when they pull through now. However, Schneider's reaction may be different if you have latenesses, critical events, and tickets.

there is still a serious driver shortage in general.

Find another grape vine 😂

Some local & LTL Companies are furloughing and laying off. My neighbor was just laid off from Old Dominion. Megas are not only reducing hiring but cutting back the fleet due to attrition and not replacing. Owner ops running on load boards are complaining about freight and low rates. Drivers are sitting more.

There is no driver shortage.

I was inspected and asked by DOT about a 5 min PC love. No lie!

I was taking a 30 at the Milan Petro and the driver next to me was struggling so badly to back in, that I PCd to move to another spot. He couldn't even follow my guidance.

I moved to another space and the DOT officer went on a lecture about people abusing PC and he complained about "advancing the load". I never left the parking lot and he went through my entire week looking for PC and said "good thing that was your only instance or I would have gone back 6 months".

I don't even bother PCing anymore after that.

Bumping this for education.

It was lumber... I falsely remembered it as logs. Good story.

I'm not sure I agree with Bruce. Smaller companies have insurance companies to deal with. Many mega carriers are self insured with underwriters for major stuff. That means less insurance restrictions at the megas.

Who was the guy that rolled the logs? Come on guys... I will find his story cause it may inspire you.

Are you mainly working on the pad and driving locally with your students?

Yes. Mostly run tire loads for the EcoShred (check out my cool video of how Prime gets paid to dispose of tires by shredding them into mulch). Or shuttling broken trailers or picking up loads locally and drop the load at the terminal. they can get picked up from the terminal for drivers to get out.

How many students are you working with on a daily basis?

I usually do 2. I have taken up to 4, but that is tiresome. Many of the experienced instructors take 4. It maximizes not only the weekly pay, but the testing bonus as well as retention bonuses

Do you stagger their times so you can work individually with multiple students per day? Or do you work with two or more together?

Depends on how I feel. Sometimes it is good for the students to watch and learn from the mistakes of others or see how the trailer reacts when the other person is driving. Other times I give them one on one.

Finally, what kind of hrs are you working each day?

Whatever I want. I am in control of the training. Sometimes when they are doing great, I end on a high note after a few hours. If they are struggling, I spend more time to make sure they end on a high note. If it is nasty outside with snow, ice or dangerous wind then I give them a class about the atlas or loads and HOS.

It truly is an amazing gig. However, the number of drivers who are permitted to do it is limited. Our Fleet managers make money off our miles, and I make very little miles. Therefore in the short time, the FM is making almost nothing off of me. However, me being me .. I have been networking and created a support system of my friends and students... Which helps them when they go solo. If they go company, they stay with my FM. This created better drivers for him. I have also been doing my best to create teams for him... Which makes him double the money. Everyone is happy. Me, my FM and my students who all support each other and met through me. And I mean... People who tested in February are now friends with my students who tested in June. Right now my FM has about 94 drivers. Last I counted 17 of them were mine. Good, informed drivers who have access to me and others 24/7. Lessens my FMs burden. One downside is that we build our vacation and rate per miles by running miles. Therefore it will take me years to build those back up. But that isn't important to me. I can afford to take a week off without pay if I like. Another downside is that I don't take real home time. Many of these.more experienced instructors will take weekends off. I don't. I usually test my students out then when I get new ones, I tell them to study pretrip for a day. So I may get one to two days off every 2 weeks. I had Etch and his classmate on the pad all day Thanksgiving. Was all day Christmas Eve. The students are away from home not getting paid. I shouldn't be taking a bunch of time off.

Right now though, instructors are struggling for students. The YouTube has been bringing in a couple for me, but if I cannot maintain at least 2 students at a time, I will have to go back OTR. But I will do that solo.

School means nothing. Negotiate for a longer training period with that particular company. It's winter. Stay in training the whole winter.

Try Pam also. They took someone from the forum who messed up. We had a driver who rolled a log truck and got a job again.

Due to training, I made $121,960. That includes 5 weeks not paid and 3 weeks vacation (which is paid much less than what I average). Home daily.

I also could have upped the number of students and made significantly more. However, this was my first year of CDL instruction, and I limited my students. I had a lot to learn. Next year I will probably up my game.

😂. OMG... I prefer the friend zone so I can more easily kick them to the curb when I get annoyed or frustrated with them.

Explains a lot.

He ran through the terminal the other day. We saw each other for about 30 minutes. We have chatted a bit. Their truck was in the shop in our PA terminal for 6 days. He got to pass through all 3 of our major terminals within 2 weeks.

I am trying to keep his spirits up through training. 😂

It's not weird at all. It is a legality. They legally have to get you home for doctors, elections and home time. Your registered address is not in their hiring area. .over your license. If they don't have the freight to do so, they won't hire in that area.

I love when people use discrimination in these situations. YES all hiring is discrimination and weeding out who they want vs who is available.

Prime has more FL drivers on the fleet than any other state. This limits the ability to get them home. Therefore every couple of years, they stop hiring from Florida. This hiring freeze is on now. Even rehires cannot get hired.

It's just business

If God forbid his kills someone in an accident, the lawyers will discover his lies. It won't end well.

I wonder if they could turn that into some sort of criminal reckless disregard for human life or depraved indifference.... Yep... I'm a.law and order fan. (Or at least was before 2010)

Regarding the pursuant Tyson drivers, that's because you two are 🔥🔥🔥🚒🚒🚒!

😂 Well thank you 😂

Hot but intimidating. Most men are intimidated by me. And stupid guys drive me crazy. 😂

I will find one eventually... Doesn't want me to be part of his harem.

Thanks Steve

I swim and shower with contacts. And can drive an 80 000 pound killing machine with no issues.

Remember that omitting this info on your state DMV and federal DOT forms you are flat out lying.