Comments By Nicholas H.

Does anyone know when the clock for these contracts starts running? It's a big difference if it starts day 1 of CDL training vs. after training is over. If that's the case, the 2-3 month training period (Prime) is a distinct disadvantage, and I'd prefer the shortest training period available (Roehl/2 weeks).

Nicholas has standards:

Can't stand wearing suits and ties either.

That's what I'm talking about. As long as you're "decent" outside the truck, and have closed toe shoes, you can certainly be comfortable! Even if that requires a career change! (I used to be a school teacher, now I'm comfortable every day, too!)

LOL! XD

Also, I don't consider driving work, it's fun. Plus, I pretty much only listen to podcasts or Howard Stern, and never watch TV, so the career seems like the perfect fit to me. After a year OTR, I might look to find a regional, dedicated, or local job so that I could have a home life with the fiance. We live rent/mortgage free in a nice house for the next couple of years, thanks to a foreclosure case I won, so I can save most of my earnings to pay for a wedding, and eventually, a nice piece of farmland, some chickens, goats, pigs, and solar panels, and get completely off the grid.

Itd not being penalized.. Its called trip and route planning. Basically uf a late isnt your fault they dony hold it against you.. Say there was a traffic accident which caused a delay.. No big deal.. A breakdown? No big deal eitther. Getting delayed at a shipper? Again not your fault. However if you took a 16 hr break, instead of your 10 hour break.. Ot stopped every 30 minutes lol.. That would be your fault. If we KNOW we are going to be late and its something we couldnt help, we simply let dispatch know and they have customer service CHANGE the appointment time and therefore are not late.

That sounds great then. As long as I'm not penalized for traffic, I'm good. Why would you not be driving if you're not sleeping?! What else is there to do lol? Gotta keep on truckin!

Nicholas, your career decision is certainly your own. Here's a heads up: my son passed the California Bar two years ago, and "volunteered" at the county district attorney's office. (They pay their volunteer lawyers very nicely.) The case load is heavy, it's all prosecution litigation, but lawyer pay is certainly much greater that truck drivers can make.

More information is a phone call to the DA's office away.

Then I would have to go to Court, which I despise :-p. I'd rather sit in a truck listening to Howard Stern all day. I've sat in Courts and wrote motions for years, and it's terrible. Can't stand wearing suits and ties either.

CDL programs in my state that are affiliaged with the Kentucky.Community College system last 30 days and cost $4k.

Recently someone on this site was discussing a community college CDL program in Iowa that costs $1800. I cant remember which one. So prices from region to region are inconsistent.

I attended a college program so i wouldnt be bound by a contract. The company I drive for, doesnt operate their own school, and normally doesnt even have teams.. They are simply accomodating my bf and I. There is 1 other team.. A friend of mine and her bf. They are a solo, regjonal,home every weekend focused company that primarily operates in the midwest, however we do have a handful of drivers in the northeast.

Company training is 30 days. We have APUs in all trucks and no trucks more than 3 years old. We have a rider and pets (dogs) policies as well. They start a brand new inexperienced driver at about 33cpm on going solo, but bump up pay quickly.

Because of our ninimum pay guarantee, I honestly never concerned myself with cpm or weekly miles, but always make more than the minimum. Regional home weekly get a min. Of $1k per week and network fleet drivers who go home every other weekend have a $1200 per week minimum pay. There are requirements to qualify for the minimum pay commitment, like being available to drive 5 days in a week and no late pickups or deliveries.

We are a very safety focused small company (550 trucks) and in bad weather ( high wind/heavy snow/ice) conditions you are expected to shut down.

Im sure there are lots of lesser known companies that probably offer similar pay guarantees.

Thanks for the information! Sounds like a great company! The local community college here doesn't have CDL courses, and even if they did, I would rather do the sleep away thing so I can 1. be immersed in the whole thing without worrying about anything else, and 2. not have to worry about scheduling road tests with the state DMV, driving back and forth to class, getting my own physical and drug test, etc... I'd rather just go to a company sponsored school and have everything done for me, and all I have to do is pass some tests and drive.

I love the minimum pay policy, and would definitely like that, but the restrictions seem a bit out of your control. How can you guarantee that you won't have a late pickup or delivery if there is bumper to bumper traffic? Why should the driver be penalized for getting stuck in traffic?

You guys have me thinking long and hard about which school to choose again, when I had my mind made up on Prime, lol. Now I'm leaning towards whoever pays the most after training.

Nicholas, this is the kind of stuff I'm talking about when I spoke of "frustrating research." You are focusing on all kinds of things, and then flip flopping back and forth constantly. Your performance as a driver will be what determines your success. You can count on that whether you are at CR England, Prime, Crete, or SchneidWernPamSwif... You are cracking me up with your back and forth comments.

Prime probably is one of the highest paying companies after training! But don't concentrate on Cents Per Mile. Make up your mind what kind of freight you want to pull, and make up your mind to stick with it for a year and hone your skills as a manager of your time and your vehicle. Heck, I made more in my rookie year at .27 CPM than many folks did who were earning .38 CPM. This is why we stress understanding how this business is performance based. You mentioned Prime's tanker division, but tanker can be tough for a greenhorn. Prime's tanker division is food grade. That means no baffles in the tank, which means if you take a turn a little too fast the liquid surge in that tank could toss you into the ditch on your side.

Lol, great points! I'm a workaholic, meaning, when I'm not sleeping, I need to be working, or I get agitated, so I have confidence in my performance as a driver. The way I see it, as long as I can listen to some Howard Stern or a good podcast, I can drive as long as I'm allowed in a day (11 hours?). If you force me to listen to a trainer's music, or sit in silence, I won't be happy at all. That's why I'm focused on not working for a team based company like Celadon or a company that has a training period longer than 8 weeks.

I see some of these companies offering sliding pay scales from 25 cpm up, and I immediately discount them because that seems like slave labor to me. But from what you say, that's not necessarily true.

I'd love to find a company that pays per hour, so that you aren't worried about being stuck in traffic, but I guess that's just one of the facts of life in this industry. If there was a company that paid per hour away from home, that'd be ideal, but I guess that's unheard of, lol. And even if on the surface it seems like one company pays more, e.g. 40 cpm, compared to another company at 36 cpm, you have to take their detention and layover pay policies into account, because those might actually make the lower cpm company higher paying in practice.

Nicholas, Abe set the whole scenario up so he could try to put the screws to his company. I don't know any drivers who have cameras and microphones set up so they can try and bait their dispatchers into a controversial conversation. That guy was a whacko. We are all glad he has gone back to living in his mom's basement. Hopefully he will stay away from our industry for a while.

Yeah, I agree that he was a whacko. Anyone in that position, having two 10 hour breaks back to back, being awake the second 10 hours, should just say no to load, correct? So what happens if you have forced dispatch, and have been awake for 10-12 hours, you can't say no to the load correct?

...we need to take a short recess Counselor, so I can get some work done.

Old School and Brett,..."hit the nails squarely on the head".

Nicholas we are not blowing any smoke here...all fact.

LOL. I know for sure that no one here is blowing any smoke, that's why I love this site and forum. You guys have me thinking long and hard about which school to choose again, when I had my mind made up on Prime, lol. Now I'm leaning towards whoever pays the most after training.

it seems like a raw deal.

Oh man Nicholas, you are a case study in the very things we are talking about when it comes to soaking in misinformation.

You need to check out some of our former conversations concerning "Abe." Here is one of them.

Thanks, I agree. After thinking about Abe's situation for the past couple of weeks, I've come to the conclusion that he should not have accepted the load. Although the dispatchers were ****heads, and certainly a liability for the company, as soon as Abe accepted the load after being awake for 10 hours, he made a big mistake. If you know you're going to need to sleep soon, don't take the load. That's where forced dispatch has me wondering what would happen if Abe had said no to the load, but had a company with forced dispatch.