Comments By Austin P.

I just finished TNT training at Prime and I realized that my trainer never moved his sliding fifth wheel (unless he always did it when I was asleep). So is this normal?

Yeah, they do a "lease purchase" with $14,000 down and no credit check (both used and new trucks) and you run under their authority. they also have a division where you get your own authority and run load boards....the same loads the rest of us run. There are truck requirements and honestly.... for the lease purchase you need to lease a truck for 3 months to order the truck then 3 mos until it comes in.

as someone who has looked into this a lot... it just doesn't add up for a newbie. You really need to kmow the freight lines and rates a nd understand the fueling to make it work.

Most people never read the contracts and dont understand just how much money is being taken every week.

So would it also be a bad idea to buy a used truck from somewhere unrelated to Prime and use that?

Terrible idea. First, you wouldnt be to get a decent interest rate because you never owned a truck before. and you are expected to put down a much higher down payment. Also, the truck would need to be fairly new as Turtle pointed out.

and the fact you have to ask these questions tells me you really dont know anything about trucking and/or prime and would be putting yourself at considerable risk.

little known fact.. a lease op can have an accident and if a self insured company such as prime or any of the big ones deems the accident to be at fault due to negligence.. that lease/owner op is held accountable for the damages...not just the deductible. same is true for freight..so slam on your brakes and you didnt properly secure the meat load... BAM! $50,000 bill, not covered by insurance.

just last week 2 idiots hit a low clearnace awning at a local hotel. $10k each.

Just go company and learn as much as you can with prime or any other company paying for the damages. cause chances are, you are gonna hit something

You're right, I don't know much about trucking. I've just been pondering this idea for the last few days, thinking if I did do this, it would be at least a year from now. I would be able to buy the truck outright, since it would be a full year of team driving with no bills at home. The insurance stuff does scare me though, good point.

This is probably a dumb question but I just want to be sure. I obviously hear a lot about people leasing on with Prime, but I never hear about people just buying their own trucks and working as o/o's with Prime. So, you can do this, right?

Austin, Just out of curiosity, why do you want to own your own Truck? Have you ever heard the saying: "A boat is a hole in the water, into which you pour money"? Same thing applies here too. Who have you been talking to that makes you think owning your own Truck is a good idea?

The net earnings really do seem to be up there for o/o's who know what they're doing (not saying I do at all, I'm just considering it for the future).

Yeah, they do a "lease purchase" with $14,000 down and no credit check (both used and new trucks) and you run under their authority. they also have a division where you get your own authority and run load boards....the same loads the rest of us run. There are truck requirements and honestly.... for the lease purchase you need to lease a truck for 3 months to order the truck then 3 mos until it comes in.

as someone who has looked into this a lot... it just doesn't add up for a newbie. You really need to kmow the freight lines and rates a nd understand the fueling to make it work.

Most people never read the contracts and dont understand just how much money is being taken every week.

So would it also be a bad idea to buy a used truck from somewhere unrelated to Prime and use that?

This is probably a dumb question but I just want to be sure. I obviously hear a lot about people leasing on with Prime, but I never hear about people just buying their own trucks and working as o/o's with Prime. So, you can do this, right?

I should've clarified that I didn't mean taking the 34 at home, I meant just taking it wherever you're ended up.

Maybe, but probably not.

If you are going to be home for 34+ weekly and are young and energetic and can handle busting out 11/14 hour days 6 days a week, great - so long as your dispatch can actually arrange 525-600 mile days for you every day that you work.

I'd rather log 8:45 daily a couple of months and then have a sweet vacation than do 70/34 over and over

Are you saying that if you take 34 hour resets, that takes away from your normal home time at the end of the month?

What's the benefit of spreading your hours through the week? You'll get about the same amount of miles whether or not you take the reset, right?

Not just that...i just wrote a long explanation and it froze.

I made the following figures up as an example.

Basically...if a truck costs $3000 per week in operation and has a revenue of $5000, the net revenue is $2000.

that same truck with only adding an additional driver cost could then generate $10,000 as a team with an operation cost of $4500. Thats a net revenue of $5500.

So by running team, the net revenue increased by $3500 per week.

The solo truck will make nothing for 4 to 5 days on home time. The team truck could be run solo if only one driver takes home time. And this does happen a lot

Prime has solo drivers but MOST lease ops (which is 75% of the company) run teams with spouses/partners or TNT train as team. Why? because training is great? In part, but teaming brings in Hi Val.loads and expedited which pays more.

You will notice a push for drivers to eventually train. Why? Its all about the benjamins. The TnT drivers are getting paid less than a full team, so prime is making even more money than i stated in the above scenario.

Think about it... one truck, one set of operation costs, that can run the miles of 2 trucks by adding only one additional driver pay without adding another truck payment, insurance, QC and safety equipment etc.

It makes sense when you understand the business.

That makes a lot of sense, I didn't even think about that

I'm just curious about their business model

In this line of business the customer will almost always go with who can move the freight the cheapest. Many companies will specialize in things in order to seperate themselves from the pack. Some carriers do intermodal, some do heavy haul and some do JIT (Just in time)/priority. This Is just how CRST has chosen to try to capitalize on a portion of the market. From what I've heard they also have solo drivers but that's primarily dedicated accounts.

Oh I see, so it was just a way to carve out a name for themselves as the expedited freight company, that makes sense.

Austin asks...

Can someone explain why CRST is mainly team-only? Wouldn't that hurt their bottom line, since it's turning a lot of applicants away? I don't get it.

They run a lot of priority, expedited freight with demanding delivery times. A team truck can run from Port Elizabeth NJ to the left coast in less than 3 days, 2.5 if all goes well.

That type of freight commands a premium rate with a higher profit margin.

I see what you're saying, but I figure they would still make more money offering non-expedited freight delivery in addition to expedited.

There is always a but...

CRST is a very successful company with an operational and business model that works for them. If you don’t think “teaming” is your cup of tea, look at other options:

Paid CDL Training Programs

As a wanna-be driver, questioning the “why” of how the big carriers operates, is somewhat futile. Try to focus on this stuff...

• Truck Driver's Career Guide
• Brett's Book: The Raw Truth About Trucking (free online version)
• High Road CDL Training Program
• CDL Practice Tests

Good luck!

I'm just curious about their business model, doesn't make a difference to me either way. I'm currently training with prime, thank you for the links though.

Austin asks...

Can someone explain why CRST is mainly team-only? Wouldn't that hurt their bottom line, since it's turning a lot of applicants away? I don't get it.

They run a lot of priority, expedited freight with demanding delivery times. A team truck can run from Port Elizabeth NJ to the left coast in less than 3 days, 2.5 if all goes well.

That type of freight commands a premium rate with a higher profit margin.

I see what you're saying, but I figure they would still make more money offering non-expedited freight delivery in addition to expedited.