Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong.
Prime has company and Lease Ops. In fact from everything I read on another trucking forum, Prime does not press the lease onto the drivers.
In fact company drivers are put in what they call a lightweight. A smaller class 8, but they pay em an extra .05cpm(.41 to .44cpm depending on region).
Secondly. They have straight up leases, of which after a 3 or 4 lease, you turn in tractor and receive a cash bonuse
Or a purchase lease, of which at the end of a lease, you can buy the tractor.
Now they are paid a percentage(72% of the load), not a base mileage or fuel surcharge. They avg $1.60 to $1.80 a mile.
And their FM's are paid according to their drivers sucess, so they have incentive to get their drivers the best paying loads.
And I never said it was easy. Sucess isn't suppose to be easy. And Many do fail in the lease model because they don't know how to budget and manage expenses.
But there are many that do succeed, and make a very good living.
I agree 90% of the lease's out there suck. But imo, Primes is one of the better one's.