Company information:
CR England
United States
www.crengland.com
This is the second time I have leased. Like many other people here, I was lured not only by our current economy, but by the promise of MILES. Now my first couple months were not bad. Then I got into the container fleet based out of Colorado. Talk about screwed big time. The DM's in this fleet would give me the wrong info to give at the ports to get a container/genset/chassis released to me and I would wind up sitting at the port Oakland or Long Beach for the weekend. The DM Shaun would promise me compensation, and he never delivered. I was recruited into the fleet and quoted a wrong pay scale, which I was told I would be compensated for, it never happened. In this same fleet I would sit at pork plants for up to two days with no detention pay whatsoever.
Now back in a general North American fleet, I am lucky if I get 2300 miles a week. I will get to my delivery anywhere from 3 hours to 18 hours early, be unloaded, ready to go for the day and then my next load does not pick up till the next night. So there is another almost 2 days sitting with no income. I am also a trainer. I still have only one 4000+ mile week as a trainer since November. My last apprentice, going into his third week had only gotten 5200 miles in two weeks. You have read how the apprentice gets paid 57 dollars a day during training. 37 dollars of that is taken from the trainer’s pocket, because, and I quote a high ranking CR England employee..."you trainers are getting the big miles, and making the big bucks..."
My last apprentice will even tell you that he shouldn't even have his CDL, because during his CDL test, the CRE DOT evaluator was shifting the truck for this student during his DOT CDL test!!!
The only guys making money at CRE are the guys in the Autoliv, Hershey's, and fleets like that. I was given 6 days to run a Walmart apple load, with an apprentice, and was told we could not be taken off the walmart load, and had to sit it out. So I dropped the apprentice off in Indiana and got him with a trainer from the Hershey's fleet. It's really motivating to see your apprentice getting a 300 dollar check and you as a lease operator get a 45 dollar check.
And don't even call your IC advocate. I had an IC advocate tell me "...well you are clearing 503 dollars a week...what's the problem????
The only thing keeping me afloat right now is the detention pay. I love getting beef loads at this point because I know they will be up to 20 hours late loading and I get 26 dollars an hour to sit there.
No truck driving company has green grass. You can keep jumping from one company to the next, and within 3 years you probably will have driven for 5 companies.
If I can't make this work, to *** with truck driving. I would rather swallow my pride and go work a counter at a hotel in my hometown making the same crap money I am now but be home every night...
