Prime Inc. Average Pay For New Drivers

I've spend at least 70 hours on here reading the forum (great forum by the way!), and have learned enough to confirm that I want to drive a truck. I almost started driving a truck instead of going to college, but I finished high school at 16 and needed something to do for a few years, so I went ahead and did college and got my bachelor's at age 20, about 2.5 yrs ago. I have a good job now, in an office, I make about $36k a year working about 47 hours a week average as an student HR Director. Since I work for a college, I get an apartment for $105 a month and its in Florida so there's no state income tax, so my paycheck goes pretty far. I worked at a prison for a while, and then came back for work for the college and have been getting frequent promotions ever since. It just isn't something I want to do long term.

As of last week I have a Class B CDL with schoolbus/passenger endorsements. I will be getting $12/hr to drive a shuttle we have that takes college students from campus to the mall and wal-mart and I can make $50 cash and get a free dinner driving for any of the student outings we have, which is nice too. I did this partly because 40 hours a week doing my normal HR responsibilities is not enough for me and I get bored on the weekend, and partly to see if I was any good at driving big vehicles. I worked about 70-80 hours a week at the prison, and I loved the hours. Turns out my CDL trainer and tester both said I was a natural and they felt very safe. I passed all my tests the first time around, and feel very comfortable driving these full size school buses, even in crazy city traffic.

Now that I've kind of introduced myself, I'd like to get a up-to-date answer to something that I know has been asked and answered many times, but I have a slightly different condition to the question. I'd like to know how much I could potentially earn at Prime Inc as a new driver in a lightweight truck for the refrigerated division IF I stay out on the road. As in, I don't take home time but a few times a year, maybe every 3-4 months. I know that isn't for everyone, but I have no family, I'm not a very social person, and I honestly would rather work all day than have an off day. It is in my nature. Plus, if I am getting burned out I can always up my home-time down the road or take a local job sooner than I am planning.

As best as I can figure, I think Prime's lightweight truck drivers are making about 42 cpm before fuel bonuses. That means averaging 2500 miles a week (which from what I read is the low end of average for good Prime drivers) 50 weeks out of the year my salary as a driver would come to $52,500 per year. So I'm just kind of wondering if that is realistic, once I'm done with training for a few months and get in the rhythm of things to expect $50k a year or greater. To me that seems very obtainable, though obviously it shouldn't be expected right off the bat.

I'm not wanting to get into trucking just for the money, but I would like to go into it with an informed expectation of my earnings. I'm planning to start the process of going to a truck driving school at a community college near my parent's farm in the next year or two, at the most. I can pay cash for the class and I have enough in savings to stop working for a lot more than a couple of months. My current position is under contract, so I have to either re-sign or decline every January, but once I 'decline' to stay another year, I still have to stay until the upcoming July, I don't leave right then in January. I'd like to stuff away some more into savings, and pay off my car (on track to pay it off Dec of next year which is 3 years early). That way if I enjoy trucking, I can just sell my car and put that money in the bank too. I'm blessed enough to have been able to work through college to graduate debt free and I payoff credit cards and bills every month. My only debt is my car, which I make double payments on.

My long term plan would be to put enough in savings to pay cash for a house and car and get a local CDL job driving gas tankers or maybe doing LTL. I think this would take me about 15 years since I'd be maxing out a 401k and Roth IRA at the same time. I'm going to buy a nice house if I buy one at all, so it will take a while to save for.

I just don't want to be disappointed and end up making less than I expected. With my math, honestly I think it is possible to earn over $60k/yr at Prime if you get your average miles up to about 2700 and get a fuel bonus. The hours, regulations, paperwork, lifestyle, etc. all sound OK to me as long as the pay is OK too.

Am I delusional, or do you think I have a pretty good handle on what to expect?

We have a thread "prime reefer" where someone else asked for specifics and I posted my rookie numbers. Keep in mind that during training you will get $700 GROSS per week... and then will owe for chains... load locks and other items. Prime will take it out little by little.

Lightweight drivers get 44.5pm and full size (me) get 39.5 cpm. My fuel bonus is between $50 to $100 per week but I know some people who don't get any .. so do not rely on that. Detention is usually about $10 to $20 per week so nothing great.

From what I have seen... avg 2700 is kinda tough... I'm about 2500. Some weeks are much better... like this week is 3100.. others might be 2100. It's the way it is.

I know some drivers who started out getting 1200 to 1500 the first month... if they excelled they got more. If not.. they got the same. My FM seemed to just let me drive from the beginning and I'd message "hours back in 3 hours. I'm parked at interstate wherever in whatever town waiting for load".

Welcome and good luck

Thanks for your answer! Sounds like $50k or more is realistic then. I'm ok with then nickel and diming me. I can live off the $700 gross no problem since I won't have rent or a family to support.

50K a year is definitely doable. As long as you have good time management skills and can adjust to the lifestyle then 2500 miles a week is average.

Thanks for your answer JakeBreak.

Remember that home time is UNPAID .. so if you go home 4 days a month... you will mostly likely be in the hole that week. I was $170 in hole last week. Some weeks I cleared $30. I gave up my apt... and I just feel like I'm catching up on bills after 4 mos of being solo.

If you read the other thread you will see a friend of mine sat for 28 hours... 200 miles away from the customer.. the left too late and hit traffic. His FM was mad. This week the guy gave him the same type of run to teach him timw management. Instead of driving straight to customer and trying to move up the appt... he's playing golf!!!! So when he is late again and gets no miles he has only himself to blame

If you read the other thread you will see a friend of mine sat for 28 hours... 200 miles away from the customer.. the left too late and hit traffic. His FM was mad. This week the guy gave him the same type of run to teach him timw management. Instead of driving straight to customer and trying to move up the appt... he's playing golf!!!! So when he is late again and gets no miles he has only himself to blame

Some people will never learn. His FM is the strong love type, too. Hope he gets what he needs.

Yeah, I don't plan on having an apartment or anything, I plan on staying out on the road and staying with family/friends when I'm off (which will probably be every 3-4 months to keep my pay high and keep myself busy). And with home time being that infrequent, I could even just pick a cool city and stay in a hotel for a few days.

I'm pretty good with time management and planning, so I think I'll be OK in that realm. Hopefully the guy you are talking about will learn his lesson :) He reminds me of a guy I worked with at my last job. I would have my schedules and employee observations done on Monday, often by lunch, while he'd be scrambling to finish his before we closed Friday.

Jacob, you sound pretty darn ambitious so I think trucking would suit you well. Your expectations are certainly reasonable. You might not make $50,000 your first year no matter who you work for or how hard you work. But if you really learn your trade, you're ambitious, and you want to find a company where you can make $50,000 I think you'd have little trouble doing that your second year. And heck, you might just come close your first year. Prime is as good a place to do it as any I know.

Now I'm not one to tell someone to take all of the years and money they spent going to college and toss it aside to become a truck driver. So I don't want to say you should get into trucking but I will say that I think it would suit you well from the way you've described yourself.

Thanks for your answer Brett. I've had to think about not using my degree, and that is one reason I'm staying where I'm at for at least a few years. That way I'll have several years of experience at the Director level, which is what I'm at now, and can move to office positions in a trucking company if later on I want to stop driving.

But the sheer number of different positions available in trucking I think will keep me busy for a long time. I think I want to do OTR then local tanker or LTL and then drive a city bus to finish out my retirement fund, but the possibilities are truly endless in this industry, which is one thing I really like about it.

Thanks again for all the answers!