Comments By Rubber Duck

I seen a YouTube guy named trucking by faith making videos about Pgt. He could probably give you some info. Just search trucking by faith on youtube. He seems to love it there but says rates are down but might be getting better soon. Both tmc and Pgt pay percentage but tmc starts at a little higher as you move up In percentage faster at tmc. They are a little more strict on things like cleaning the truck. I cant even get into the blue beacon most days because their guys are all there at once. What tmc pays for truck washes a week could feed the entire population of a small third world country.

I see now the errors in my calculations but found more. I see now your talking about getting home Friday and leaving back out Monday once a month. Now in that case I think the income potential is greater but much less home time than a regional driver would get. I was thinking home not driving for 5 days in a row. Which is what a new driver might of believed when you say 4 or five days home.

I don’t doubt you did good. What I doubt is you took 5 days off in a row after 4 weeks and did good. I’m not just basing this on a guess. I shouldn’t of said that. It’s actually a matter of fact that your going to reset or your going to run recaps. Either way your taking off time each week either by being short hours or doing a reset. If you realized my way of thinking which is the right way of thinking before you take a job then you can make the best choice on which job to take. If your plan is to take 5 days off after 4 weeks your running like a part timer. Your losing Lots of money.

Your going to reset on the road 3 times in a 4 week period then take 5 days off.

And you're basing that statement on what?

You see, I actually drove a flatbed for prime, so I'm basing my statement on facts and experience. Never once in my time did I take 3 resets in a month.

My guess

Exactly. It's only a guess on your part. We don't deal in guesses here, we give people unbiased facts and let them make their own decision.

I can't speak for TMC, but my time at Prime showed me that days can turn into weeks in a row when freight is good. Ebb & flow.

Statements such as Rubber Duck's are simply guesses with no basis in fact.

I did very well at Prime, because I put forth the effort. I'm confident I would have done equally well at TMC.

That is the truth.

This is the trucking fantasy. It's not the same amount of time off. Your going to reset on the road 3 times in a 4 week period then take 5 days off. Im no mathematician far from it but the writing is on the wall. My guess is a minimum of 10 thousand dollars in losses to the driver if a he raN this way. But it's not all about money so if being home 5 days in a row is worth 10k a year I say go for it then. Being happy is what it's all about. I'm just trying to tell the truth on the trucking truth because that's the truth.

Rubber Duck states:

What’s really going to happen is your going to lose a ton of money going home for a whole week and at the end of the year your going to be missing thousand and thousands of dollars compared to what you would of made doing resets at your house every weekend.

Whether someone takes a 34 every weekend or instead takes several days off in a row at the end of the month, the amount of days taken off are the same. So the argument that you'd lose thousands and thousands of dollars is false.

Income potential at both companies is largely identical, and based on a driver's effort.

Thanks for what you do and I hope things change. I think after the election things will get back to normal.

The whole home for 5 days in a row thing is a pay check killer. Sounds great until you got to go without a pay for a whole week. You might think your going to make more staying out for 3 to to 4 weeks but that’s just a myth. What’s really going to happen is your going to lose a ton of money going home for a whole week and at the end of the year your going to be missing thousand and thousands of dollars compared to what you would of made doing resets at your house every weekend. I say go with TMC if your interested in flatbed. The orientation is longer because the company wants you to know the TMC way and not just your trainers way of doing things. Trust me things get lost in translation and trainers don’t always know everything about flatbed. Is primes 50k ran as a team? Is TMC otr training ran as team? Those are important questions if your considering one over the other based on how much you like the idea of 50k miles of training. Is it really training or is it team driving?

Glad you didn’t get hurt. If they let you go out the door with tires like that I’d be looking them brakes over next. Jeez.

Why say no to training? What if you could make 26k more a year training would that be worth it?

Thank you Brother fro your story, i do not mind the low pay, I just want to get exp. MY 2nd accident totally caught me off guard in life. But I will look into Western Express, Pam, and Trans am. Is it possible to avoid lease purchase for Western Express or is that a bad thing if they are giving me a chance?

I am i western express driver. Many on here have seen me say this a lot. WE hired me when I havent driven in 5 years. Your at fault wreck may cause you to go out with a trainer for 250 driving ours. Nothing wrong with that. The pay is bare minimum but they are hiring you when no one else would. They also shove lease purchase down your throat. Run hard have a good attitude with your trainer and dm. When things go wrong the roll off like water off a duck's back. *****ing about it wont fix it any faster. Oh get a watch since you are so uncertain

WE is no different than most when it comes to lease purchase. They will ask you a few times, just say no, it wont ruffle any feathers. They will also try to push training on you, again just say no. After a few no replies they will stop. They wont hold either one against you. Like you've heard their pay is on the low end but they do have newer equipment and take care of it.

I love how you mentioned looking for a way to back out Incase you got to the point you couldn’t go anymore. So funny.

You can go off of your drive tires. I believe the technique is at about the second drive tire cut it all the way to the right and go out and then hard to the left so that you’ve turned it into as much of a 45 as you can. When you do this you need to be watching the back of your trailer as if it’s the new hood of your truck.