Learn the Whole Experience of CRST NOW

Good luck.

 

So what's your pain threshhold? How long can you go making chump change, and driving with a complete stranger who can't find his way out of a wet paper sack? May the Force be with you Daniel Son

 

You have this thread in the wrong part of the forum. Although, the majority of CRST trucks I see, stay parked at truck stops so you might be in the right section after all. Good luck Driver

 

I worked for crst. They are based outta Cedar Rapids not Waterloo. They many smaller yards scattered across the us. Cedar Rapids is the best one. You will live on chump change and no sleep. Dispatchers will run you into the ground. The trucks are old but for the most part reliable. I got lucky and teamed with a long time buddy. Once he quit I finished my contract and quit the exact day it was up. It was a terrible experience and I learned nothing from the "school". They teach you just enough to pass the dot exam. I think we drove maybe a total of a hour in the 2 weeks. Hope you get a good trainer and not one that just treats you like a team runner. Best of luck. You'd be better off going to a trucking school and signing on with a better company like Schneider or Stevens.

 

3 hour wait for your motel room. Sounds like they forgot to book your rooms for you, just like they did with my class.

Some advice. Watch videos on backing, read the advice on these forums about it. While way too many of the long time drivers on here just want to flex their muscles cuz they drove longer than you, there's some who are really looking out for new drivers and will give you good advice. The school isn't going to teach you this stuff, neither is your clueless lead driver. Backing into trucks is one of the company's most common accidents.

In only a week after when I quit and took a local job, I learned more from the guy training me on my route than I did by my lead driver, and the company's safety guy in CA. Most of it is just little things, like ways to get better MPG, or get your trailer's landing gear to last longer, but I went from needing 2-3 pullups to back a trailer to almost getting it into a dock in one back, and you need to be into those perfectly. The guys on this site helped me A LOT with that. Once you pass your test and get your CDL, get a headstart and start asking the guys here about every little thing: Shifting, going up/down hills, backing, dropping trailers...

You're only going to be taught the bare minimum, and odds are so was your lead driver. Stay active on the forums, and you'll learn a lot and become a great truck driver.

And good luck. CRST will drive you INSANE. It's only 8 months. Find a good codriver, and just get through it, and then you'll be able to move on, and make a lot more money, and get home more... Just make sure when it comes to finding a codriver, you don't just settle on the first one you talk to, find out everything. If they drive at night, when they shower, how loud they play their music, if they make walmart stops. The hardest part about CRST is your codriver. Find a good one, and that time will go fast.