Profile For Rainy D.

On Guard is a radar and if that plate gets blocked by bugs, ice or even shadows it will trigger or just not work and give an error code.

I have only had one hard brake event and it was a bridge. Dispatch told me it tells them the distance of the object in front if them and they can look on google maps to know it was indeed a bridge. "front end colision" is the code it gives for bridges.

but yeah, its sensitive.

I dont have an actual home lol

but...i guess as bad as all that is putting up with the whiners and complainers. the negativity from morons who think they are more important than they are. The vloggers who start out with "Yo yo yo... this is kid xyz in the house comin at ya" as if we are supposed to think that is cool. Then you realize they cant even read an atlas.

ok...im a whiner today hahaha

Dont laugh...for me it is switching trucks. Once you are in a truck for six months or so, you know every rattle and creak. You know every button and and switch. You've been on it long enough to have every nook and cranny filled with personal belongings.

Then a year later you have to swap trucks. Whats worse than taking hours to move everything and going from a manual to an automatic? Going from a Cascadia to an International.

Now all your instruments are in different places with different markings. The cabinets for which you bought drawers are not there. Your twin XL expensive yet incredibly comfortable mattress doesnt fit. the cabinet where yoi hid the kitty litter box has been removed and in general, you just feel like crying.

yes, this was my life today. whhhhhaaaaa!!

Omg.. i meant you would.be stupid if you arent scared. sorry.

If you are worried about being a woman out here, dont be. Men are nicer to and more patient women. They will.help you back, the trainers will want you, and the dispatchers will love you. Women are usually slower and safer drivers, listen better in training, and more efficient in general. thats sexist sounding, but true.

heres a couple of my articles

Sexism In Trucking

Why Im Not Just A Number

At Prime it is a 24 hour policy. it used to be 34.. We had someone who posted years ago that since he takes the truck home and is responsible for it, his company does not allow drinking even on home time. i thought that extreme at the time., but you go.to a wedding get pretty tipsy, then get called for either a load or even just to move the truck from the space cause of an issue at the truck stop. having seen 3 different truck stop fires, that isnt crazy. the fire dept might need more room or whatever.

in that event you are impaired. and YES, i have been asked once to come off hometime to deal with a quick unload as the nearby driver ran out of hours. they made it up to me in money and an extended home time.

i dont drink at all so none of this affects me. But i have seen quite a few students at applebees and such drinking then get sent home.

DO NOT drink at anytime of your training. not at all. And Brett wrote in his book i think it was that he got popped for drug and breathalyzer at 0800 coming off home time....they expect you to do it at home so they will test you.

Understand at prime all of the training is driving. i had one week orientation for DOT physical, drug test, SIM training and some videos, then went on the road at the end of that week.

Kim was just there and yes she waited a few days longer for a female trainer, but that was labor day week and a lot of trucking events were going on so drivers were otherwise engaged. its kinda like going at christmas and expecting to not wait. theres a lot more women at prime now over the last few years. you wont be sitting there for 5 or six weeks without a trainer if that is your fear.

was i scared of going solo??? i wrote a freaking article about it. lol

Scared of Going Solo? You are not Alone

Im a very independent type and had already driven my car 1500 miles away using maps cause i am.not paying thousands of dollars fora Jetsons GPS in my car so if can call me stupid.

Driving the rig and driving the car are two different things. if you were nervous, you would be stupid. if you mean nervous about personal safety across the country...im a former postal workee.from NJ.with 4 siblings..im the one that scares people. lol

in winter you just go much slower. i went solo 2/14 and thought winter was almost done...nope. Colorado still.had chain laws.in effect in May. and it snowed on july 4th in WY!!!!

winter training is a debate. i came.to prime for winter training but my trainers were lease ops who get to choose their loads and would avoid snow. i got.minimal snow trainimg, however, im from NJ and so snow and ice werent as scary as it was to someone from FL. in bad weather you just shut down and message "shutting dowm due to snow." no big deal. it shows you are safe.

i gotta.go.will.write.later

Think about what you just said. Who will have the better lawyer, the guy who cut me.off and got hit or the multi billion dollar mega carrier with the dash cam? a good lawyer will suponea it and a better lawyer will get the tape thrown out.

i have only know 2.people that had the cams.used. both were determined to.have been driving safely and not the cause of.the accident. they can prove the driver was watching mirrors, using turn signals etc.

people who want to see negativity will in anything.

Yeah!!! Turrle I forgot about that. theres a recording on the prime phone lines that says "The average lease op makes $1000 per week solo and $2300 per week team training. If you arent training, you are losing $1300 per week."

i heard that and said "cool. i take home.more than the average lease op. guess i dont have to lease."

Rainy thank you for explaining about company sponsored training. I really leaning towards Prime or Millis. Can you give me some information about driving Prime's lightweight truck and driving as a team. How do they match you up with someone and can you team dream for a few months or do you have to do it for a year.

1.) Light weight reefer is paying 49cpm which is good for a newbie. (condos are 44cpm to start)

you earn paid vacation pay at 85k miles in a light weight (125k in a condo).

The LW truck has less storage space. the bed is almost directly behind the seats. It has sorta shallow shelves around the top and no top bunk.

2.) Teaming is hard and honestly, if you learn to manage your time you can make the same amount of money solo. First you have to learn to sleep in a rolling truck, then you need to find someone you can trust while you are sleeping. Also, no matter.what youz will.drive each other nuts after awhile.

3) you can team or go solo as often as you like. I know a guy that does 3 mos solo then 3 mos team.

If you meet someone you want to team with, you just tell your fleet manager. many stay on the trainers truck after upgrading and stay team. Otherwise you can ask your FM to find you someone. They know their drivers and personalities. they also know the good drivers you can trust.

Orange and yellow.mutlianes are good. VT will have a few roads.

US 7 to US4, to VT 100 to VT 107 to I89.

those are good and traveled often. where you headed?

So I'm curious Rainy the way you spit those numbers out I'd say you have a pretty clear understanding of it. Can you say you have ever met a "successful" owner operator or feel it is possible at all?

success is subjective. i have an oo.friend who teams at fedex. She bought a 6 year old truck for $35k, and the $14k extended warranty. a month later she put out $15k for a non warranteed part. also as a first time buyer the interest payment was alot more.

so she pays $1200 per month for the payments, big difference from the prime lease. But, shes in an old truck that the first year alone cost her $40k in repairs. because of the age of the truck she spends a lot more for fuel. close to $1000 more per week over my cascadia. Shes also in a Volvo which is heavier than my cascadia, so her fuel will cost more anyway. because she pays for the repairs, she lets things wait or buys used parts such as tires. her APU broke and she waited for weeks before fixing it. shes get a patch welded instead of replacing a part.

If you ask her she is ecstatic with her revenue and she chooses her loads from load boards. she made me all sorts of spreadsheets and offered me a job driving a truck she was planning to buy. she takes way more hometime than any other lease or oo i know but she still doesnt have the savings i do, and her credit is way lower than mine. i was nearly bankrupt and brought my credit score way up to 760s. im completely debt free but shes hovering around 630. so if she was making all that, wouldnt she have the money to pay her debt off? i did.

is it cause i budget? is it.cause she spends too much on entertianment when she goes home? who knows.

as a company driver i will always have a bright shiny new truck and at 400k miles ill get another one. Anything that goes wrong with my truck gets fixed when i request, whether new tires, a window button, an APU or seat. i am usually calm and not stressed about chasing revenue cause i know my FM wil take care of me. with my tests before surgery, i had to keep running between NJ and MO. My FM runs me through places i want without question.

If you ask my boyfriend he will tell you leasing is better, but over christmas he was stressed cause he could only stay home 3 days. he had to make that money, yet he boasts to me that company drivers are used and abused.

Both she and he have made runs in dead of winter when they should have been shut down cause they "had to". screw that, im parking.

i have one lease op friend who after 20 years just retired and bought a house. Most have no savings or retirement funds set up. I have a 5 year plan and can buy a house outright if i want to.

The very first trainer i met at prime is now running solo and told me "dont bother going lease. your making more than i am." Finding honest people is rare.

what is succesful to you, driving a new truck? if so then my boyfriend and i are succesful. is it major home time? then my fedex friend is. is it money in the bank and retirement? then i am more successful than eithee of them.

My idea of success would be all of it. and if it is possible it will take planning and years. Most of these people have no business plan, no budget, no idea what they would do if freight rates dropped again or if fuel shot up in price.

The guys have been so adamant here against it cause people see "driver shortage" and "make $200,000 the second year" and they sign their lives away with no preparation. what Old School and Brett were pointing out is that unlike buying real estate that could go up in value, that truck is constantly going down. thats why so many OO have 1 million miles or.more.

Im a snob. Im not driving an old truck with a busted APU and staying in a Red Roof Inn when the truck is in the shop. Im not risking my life in blizzards. My butt is in a jacuzzi suite. lol so in my opinion...it would take years and a lot of knowledge, if it was possible.

you can be sure of this....any owner or lease op who has flashy cars and vacation homes, motorcycles, are never around to enjoy them. they are too busy working to pay for them.

All I was interested in seeing was specific numbers. Merely curious. I've have never seen numbers like Rainy posted before. Had no idea how much all of those things costed.

Rainy, thanks for taking the time to post all of that but very informative.

Your welcome.

This is part of what we were trying to say. None of them will.post the numbers because most wont understand them and others just want to brag about that huge revenue. They cant answer when you question them.

I have a unique situation that my guy gave me returns for the past three years for me to look at. I have the contracts and understand the legelese of them.

Its an ongoing problem. Yes i believe the driver was proud. But many of these guys have no money at the end of the year to pay the tax man cause they spent it all.

They give us a smith type of class and SIM training. defensive driving training

but even as a business owner, you still have a boss. Many of them, in the form of customers.

There's no law nor any contract that says they have to give you enough of the right freight to stay in business. You think you're calling all the shots? Think again.

This is something else drivers dont understand cause they dont read the contract. our contract says a guaranteed average of $1.04 per mile. not a minimum but a minimum average. which means it could be really low.

i feel like an owner op. i never deal with dispatch unless i want to. i tell them my plan to fix my truck, pick up trailers, or whatever else i need and get "10/4 thanks".

eh... Im done.

At prime we test backing with the tandems to the rear because it counters the over steering. It takes longer for thr trailer to move therefore longer for you to screw up.

then we slide all the way forward for the road test to help with the off tracking

Hope this.helps

Bryan,

Please.understand that this.forum.is geared toward people interested in gaining their CDL. People who have never driven a truck at all. They go to these companies and amazingly enough, it isnt the trucking companies push the lease/oo concept on new drivers. its the other drivers. They wear it like a badge of honor, yet most are complaining about being in the hole. And they went lease right out of training so know no better. If you look at the negative reviews about Prime, 90% are from lease ops who blame Prime. Its not Primes fault, the driver didnt read the contact, didnt know the business and winds up in the hole. they dont research either. Example, the lease contract says you can take a prime truck you are leasing to another company with the permission of prime. sounds great! but the contract can be terminated at any time by either party. If you decide to take your lease truck out of prime, you need a contract amendment stating your new company will.take X amount of money from your settlement and pay prime directly GREAT! except almost no company will take the time and money to do that.

what happens if i get sick as a company driver? I just took a month off for surgery. My total surgery bill was $52,000. With my insurance i only paid $900. Thanks to my savings, I was able to pay $2700 for the hotel, $1600 for the rental car, and i spent a couple thousand while out. Everything is paid and not on credit cards.

My insurance covered the surgery and my disability paid $1000 per week for 2 of my weeks out.

Now, MOST lease ops i know who do not team with a spouse do not have health insurance. Many team with the spouse and the spouse gets the medical through prime to cover both. The rest claim they cant afford it. And they dont have disability. or the other insurances either.

that means a lease op in my situation would have paid $4300 for the hotel and car, plus the minimum of $5600 for the lease and truck insurance etc. Plus they wouldnt have had the health insurance. so then what?

Theres a prime driver on FB who as a company driver, went from homeless to paying $100,000 in cash for her house in 4 years. Shes on the Prime FB page if you want to see the post.

On the flip side, one of our forum members became a lease op after a year then started training to make.money. Now he is no longer training but posting on FB that he is "flat broke and looking for free stuff to do while i wait for my new lease to come in....i have my car here, but am really broke and cant spend too.much on gas." REALLY???? whats is the point then?

Our problem is not someone succeeding, we want everyone to succeed. We just dont want new drivers who dont have how to drive to get over their head. There is SO much to know. If I just started med school, would you want me performing brain surgery on you? If you were on death row, would you want me writing your appeal if i was a paralegal and not a lawyer? same thing. too new.

Another issue....Newbies cant train, so you cant take a student and get out of the hole. Newbies get stuck and need tows. which counts as accidents and the tow bill is the lease ops problem. Then newbies get an idea of "ill just take an experienced driver to team with" but they cant afford an experienced driver cause they dont knownwhat they are doing.

AND that doesnt count the HOS time management. In order to rack.up those high miles teaming or solo, you need to know how to get 34s when you need them, take rolling 34s while teaming, and know when and where you can drop loads early.

I hate those who convince others it can be great from the beginning. I considered recently to try it. I collected my friends end of year statements and they were all pretty similar.

heres a secret...the FMs get paid based on your prodictivity. So now you hussle constantly but you have a $6000 revenue this week. the guy next to you is in the hole $1500. guess who is getting that $2 per mile load? the bum next to you cause even if you deserve it, that FM.doesnt get his bonus if that guy stays in the hole. You will get a load, but a cheaper one not the prized one.

on the other hand, i get rhe highest mile available load. and i get it as a preplan way before i deliver. The lease ops will argue back and forth for hours over accepting ONE load. Im rolling and making money.

With all that said, if someone with a couple years in says they want to try, awesome. go.for it. But that walk away lease is not truly walk away. you still owe any and all damage to the truck including every drill hole for the TV and game center, plus whatever you owe for that week and any previous balance.

Its not hate or thinking an owner or lease op is evil. its fear that some braggards are misguiding new drivers into a fantasyland without telling them all the risks. i ran my dads shop.of 80+ employees so i think i have more understanding than many others. amd many look at the lease trucks as new toys. people with bad credit who.couldnt get a more reasonable payment elsewhere.

i posted about a lease op.last year who picked up his truck and first load, came back.to the terminal one mile away to scale and rolled the truck. So he owed the Prime schooling of $4000+, the $2000 in insurance deductible, and the $1400 truck payments. and he lost his job and wont get hired anywhere for a long time. THAT is what we are fearing and trying to.prevent.

After all of that....you still get hit with a turn in fee. So my guys last lease he turned in his truck and was supposed to get $18,000 as a lease completion bonus. They kept $7,000 to get the truck to its original state in order to sell it. That lease completion is just what he paid for with his $500 per week.mileage and mandatory maintence funds. it was already his money.

The lease purchase is a different story. You need $14,000 down, and have similar fees, but the mileage fees are different.

We argue because he still doesn't get it. Lease ops get it in their head that they are bosses. All they are is glorified company drivers with high overhead.

My guy said to me "I saved $20,000 since June. can you say that?"

What he didn't get is that $16,000 of that is his taxes from last year he didn't pay yet. So that means he only saved $4,000. So yeah....in six months I put $12,000 into my savings account, $4500 into my 401k, and $1200 for all my insurances, and i still went home and got my massages and jacuzzis.

I have real numbers from my boyfriends end of year lease settlement at Prime

keep in mind he is a team trainer, and i dont know how many weeks he had a student on the truck. He leases the truck. He said he thinks he did a total of two months total solo.

His annual revenue was approx $230,000

His costs including lease payment, fuel, insurance, mileage, repairs, payroll for trainees, payroll taxes and workers comp for the trainees etc was $158,000

So 230k minus 158k = $77,000

He paid out $22,000 in taxes from that. He has no health insurance, 401k, disabilty, life etc.

He went home a total of 18 days in one year. This does not count a 34 at home or a 10 hr while he had a load.

I grossed $72,547 the same year.

I went home 60 days, plus had down time in the terminals when I wanted. i trained only four months that year. So i got at least 42 more days of hometime and with 46cpm plus bonuses I make close to $250 per 500 mile day of driving. That would put me at another $10,500 if i stayed out as he did. So i would have been at $82,000 while he was $77,000

and i still would have had more down time because i was solo and he was running team. ********** if you break it down by cpm. Last years freight rates were lower than this year.

Last year he averaged $1.25 per mile (the lowest was 98cpm, the highest was $2.10). Rates have increased significantly this year, but fuel prices are fluid. He lives in FL and when he does go home, he has to take crappy paying loads to get out. So just going home for a quick 34 eats into profits.)

His avg costs per mile was .75cpm

So $1.25 - .75 = 50cpm NET REVENUE

These numbers include his trainer, on time delivery, and safety bonuses. Then the taxes come out.

My pay rate is 46cpm and i get a fuel bonus in addition to safety and on time delivery. That puts me just about even with him.

So why are costs so high besides the FL freight issue? Because with students you have to pay not only payroll, and the taxes, OWCP, but the deductibles for accidents. His truck was hit by 2 students which costs tow bills and hotel bills while truck was getting repaired. You pay extra fuel to get students home and pick them up. If a student must stay in training long enough to get health insurance, the lease op pays the health insurance employer premium.

Truck payment plus insurance, prepass, QC, phone app fees, settlement fees, OWCP, all come to about $1400 per week. WITHOUT fuel

In addition, he has to pay 10cpm for excess mileage and repair (they want any wear and tear paid for to make it ready to sell). So teaming that is $500 per week.

So $1400 for truck, $500 for mileage and we didnt talk about fuel or his pay. Fuel is a learned science. You must know which states to buy fuel in.

PA has a .77 cent per gallon tax. NJ is 44cpg CA is 56cpg. Oh is 22cpg.

As a LO/OO running under the mega carrier authority, you get their fuel discount... which can be 50cpg!!! Run under your own authority, or dont know which states have high taxes and you screw yourself. YES most states rebate the fuel tax a couple times a year, but not all. VA, KY do not. Theres others but i never looked that closely cause it doesnt matter to me. The point is, you need to pay the pump price and tax well before you would get any rebate.

Also when it comes to buying fuel, the day you do it matters. If you fuel at the end of the week, you can easily pay $800 to $1000 more than you expected that week because that fuel will come out of the current week but be used the following week. You need to know if the prices are changing the following day, because a 5cpg increase is huge. Buy it cheap when you can. Fueling at Carlisle PA Petro cause you like the showers will bankrupt you because not only are you paying 77cpg tax, but the pump price 30cpg more than the Flying J down the street.

You need to know freight lanes and rates. a $2 per mile load going into AL might sound great, but it is a freight dead zone. that means you are burning up fuel to dead head out. You need to know heavy freight vs light which determines how much fuel you will burn. Is broccoli heavier than tomatoes? You need to know the topography of the area. mountains will burn fuel more than flat KS. Running reefer you pay for that fuel, so now temps get involved. If you have ice cream at -20 in 120 degree AZ....you are gonna spend a ton of reefer fuel money. All this goes into deciding on a load, and a ton im sure i dont know or left out.

So we are still tallying..$1900 for truck and miles. At keast $1000 for student and employer taxes, and $1200 for fuel (5000 miles ÷ 8mpg × $2)

So $1900 + $1000+ $1200= $4100 and he didnt pay himself or taxes yet.

He is a lease op right and wants to make good salary...so add another $1900 which now puts you at $6000 revenue....but that is PRE TAX.

So figure you need to make $9000 per week to satisfy your $6000 costs and salary and pay the taxes. (dont forget the $1500 per year accountant fees and all those monthly bank fees).

In order to do all that, you need to run 5000 miles per week at $1.85 per mile and you get $9000. So when you get low loads, it is gonna hurt And THIS is what most newbies dont understand. They dont understand the "Get $30,000 at the end of your 3 year lease just for completing it". They dont understand that money is coming from the mandatory maintence and mileage funds the driver paid for.

Ill answer any questions you have about Prime and Susan here is with Westside Transport and she trains. GTown, Errol who trains at Swift, Old School is at Knight, Big Scott is at CFI, Millionmiler is at CRST (team only company). we have a vast group on the general discussion board.

Remember, we all love our companies and will swear its better than the rest. lol If we didnt feel.that way, we would go somewhere else. Any of us can because we put in the time and effort to prove our worth.

If you look in the training diaries section you can search and im sure you will find Millis or any other company of interest.