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It has been a while since my last post, I have been busy with life in general and going through my air force retirement process, hard at this time of world crisis to let go but the Doc's say the back is too bad and its time to go, so I'm now retired after 21 years. I'm currently going through the Western Dakota Tech institute for my driving school and it has been cool so far, today we drive for the first time after a week of prelimenary classes on general truck knowledge as well as first aid-CPR courses, Log books and how evil they are....just kidding!!! Still trying to decide between schneider, werner and swift since they all run a lot in our next home area of central NY (near syracuse) Well gotta go and learn to shift the big rig today and drive in circles, more to follow!!!

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good luck to ya Dan. when i started out OTR 3 yrs ago, i was with Werner..didnt have no probs with them whatsoever,u just go with the flow. U can go to Swift if'n u want to drive a slower truck.lol...u might want to look into Prime, I havent had any probs with Prime yet(knockin on wood now!)lol...again, good luck to ya

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Glad to hear that school is going swell, thus far.
Out of the carriers You have Listed...I vote for Schneider.

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Originally posted by giggles:
u might want to look into Prime, I havent had any probs with Prime yet(knockin on wood now!)lol...again, good luck to ya
At the risk or sounding mean here...but what rock have you been hiding under. Do a search on Prime and you will learn a lot in a hurry, including several who have praised Prime going in and then came back a few weeks later to say they were not coming back in here again for a long time because they were having to sell everything because Prime ran them into the poor house litterally.
Only two things I know of are infinite. The universe and human stupidity, and I am not real sure about the universe.
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Uturn,Rock? The guy looks like he's working his way down the ladder.
Mike
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Thats why im a company driver and dont lease. The lease program is the worst i have ever seen but as a company driver, they give me the miles and the pay is alright

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Yesterday was the first day driving in this huge lot next to the local fairgrounds just practicing starting off and up shifting while bobtailing, one of the students did not show up so myself and one other student got to drive quite a bit which was cool and we had fun,
Today we were in the same lot only I was the only student that showed up so for and hour we drove the same lot with the trailer and practiced up and down shifting and pulling the trailer, basically getting a feel for it, I was having fun but god its gotta be boring for the instructor!!! He is a retired air force man also so we have fun in between learning talking about the "old times" The one fellow student finally showed but I still got quite a bit of practice in today. Tommorrow we attack the streets in town....yikes stay out of rapid city south dakota!!! In case you're wondering the class has 7 students and this week 4 students take turns together in the morning 7-11 then 3 of us are supposed to do the afternoon session 12-4 but with one guy not showing up we are making out pretty good, next week half the class practices backing while the other half attacks the highways and biways then switch after lunch from road to backing with the other instructor, its a small school but the instructor has been great and the equipment is very good as well. I'll keep you posted. take care all and keep the rubber side down!!!

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BigDan!
Glad to hear. I start in on Saturday myself training at Tri-State. I'll try to post a log on how the weekend classes are so others will have a chance to compare the options of 'straight' training compared to 'week-end warrior' training.
BTW - Retired AF myself ('70 - '94)
Cheers!I ride for those who can't! POW/MIA - You are NOT forgotten!!
Lead, Follow or get out of my way!!!

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Dan, if your from central NY, do yourself a favor and stay away from werner and swift.
Ask yourself why they need to be recruiting so many new drivers all the while.
Not for nothing but I've been doing this stuff for over 7 yrs. now and have seen alot.
My suggestion to you would be look at Roehl,SNC,possibly KLLM or even maybe Millis.
Remember the starting pay varies widely, but those are companies with very strong upstate freight.
I know it is hard to do,but spending an hour or two sitting buy central ny companies to see what truck are constantly delivering or picking up there would've helped,I mean places like Wal-mart,budweiser,Americold, coca-cola and the like.
Read the other posts concerning companies your thinking about and by all means try to talk to drivers from those companies.
Good Luck,
Syracuse #1 NCAA mens basketball

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Big Dan - Thanks for the update. Keep us up to date with your progress.

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Well, I got to scare people on the street yeaterday although it was just some side streets with little traffic!!! Still trying to get used to the truck and how it handles, today we had all classroom and out to the range in the afternoon for our vehicle inspection walk through, which was OK the weather was really nice here today. Next monday we hit the highway and take I-90 to sturgis and back hitting every exit so that should be interesting!!!
Just so folks know I am looking at many companies and just trying to find the least evil place to get my feet wet and not be too abused, but any and all advice is taken to heart and researched by me to find what might work for me, ultimately the OTR gig is to get experience and then hopefully lead to a local tanker job, we'll see how it goes!!!! Oh and yea Syracuse orangemen basketball, well its about time!!!!