My "Rotten" CRST Experience

If your route was wrong, You should have contacted your FM and get a new route approved. There would have been no issue. And if Your FM would not fix it for you, then you would go over him..

Now can you go into the 9987.00 Not sure what your meaning. All you said is 9987.00 for bus? what dose that mean?

 

You know, I actually feel really sad for you because from the post, you seem like a genuine guy who really wants to do this, just met with some distractions along the way.

I have been here for a very long time and perhaps it was easier for me in making a move over to CRST because I already had experience and grew up wanting to do this for a career.

For some it is easier than for others. I fail to see where you have any real issues performance wise, just with the rate of pay. Allow me to say a few things that you may not like to hear and may not agree with and along the way after posting this, be prepared to see negative comments about what I say.

.22 cpm seems like very little pay, I will agree with that fact, however, .22 cents per mile adds up. How long does it take a semi to move 1 mile? very little time. How hard is it to move a semi 600 miles per day? at 60 mph, that is ten hours of driving. Your going to have to get used to putting the pedal to the floor and moving the truck down the road. You cant drive 400 miles and say oh what the heck, my partner can make up the short fall.

There is not a driver manager in this company that I know of, who will put up with this on a regular basis, maybe once or twice, but not daily. You have to move down the road, and I think you realize this already, just wanted to add it in.

Lets do some math and look at the real picture here and not the picture some know it all will try to paint for you. This comes from many years in this business.

If you drive 600 miles per day average and I said average, some days 565, 589, 630, what ever, lets say 600 miles per day. Now in seven days that is an average of 4200 miles, but lets say you only do 3600 miles, thats $792.00 per week. That figure in this day and age and economy is pretty darn good, unless you live high on the hog. Now if you did 4200 miles per week and this is not impossible if you have a co-driver/partner who also runs hard, a team can do 10,000 miles per week, some, not all of course, but lets say you did 4200. That is a gross weekly pay of $924.00 per week and this is at .22 cpm, aka the slave wages so many come here and talk about.

Now, will the truck break down? yes it happens, will you arrive for a delivery at 5:00 pm on a Friday, only to find out that they closed at 4:00 and this was a new thing that no one managed to tell CRST? of course, it happens and these are the type of instances where you lose miles per week and your paycheck suffers. Will you get caught in a snow storm and have to troll the highway at 15 mph for 90 miles? it happens.

Now, you talk about having to pay all these costs back, well did you expect not to? you agreed before you got onboard to these costs and signing a contract and you did it whether willingly or you had reservations, so to come here and gripe about these things, is senseless.

Do your year, get the miles and experience. Keep all your logs, so you can proudly show the next company you move onto how you came into this business called trucking and it is a business with zero experience and you grew to be a really good trucker with some solid miles under your belt.

Let me tell you something else. I can honestly say that I have talked to probably 100 to 250 drivers who came here to CRST in your shoes and griped about how bad the training was, how they had to live up to a contractual obligation, had to repay all types of things, how they couldn't live with .22 cpm, how that was slave wages, and five years later, many of them are still here at who? CRST.

Your new and don't really know as much as myself and others know. You don't know crap about this industry and business until you have been in it a minimum of two years, because it takes atleast two years to gain any real understanding of what it really is all about.

In this economy, people are losing jobs, homes, cars, wives, kids and families, 401 K's dwindle to nothing, pensions evaporate, teachers lose jobs to someone who has three months more tenure or worse yet, just getting out of college. Some go from a salary of $75,000.00 a year and a pretty darn decent health plan to making minimum wage and maybe, just maybe they get 40 hours a week if the boss likes you and the uppers say oh give the guy some more hours, but guess what, to do that will cut into his overtime, so you are s.o.l.

You have an opportunity to make atleast a better salary at .22 cents per mile than much of the working society currently makes. You have a chance at a having a health plan, traveling for free and getting paid for it and if you do your job, keep your logs clean, don't get scale tickets and moving violations, take care of the truck they give you, than down the road, you can become a driver trainer, and potentially a owner operator and be in business for yourself, doing the same job your going to be doing, just on a broader scale and achieve what? a bigger paycheck.

If I were just starting out, I would come here, hands down. Yes, there are other companies that will train you. England trucking, where England stands for "Every New Guy Leaves After Ninety days", FFE, Stevens Transport, Prime where the trucks are governed at 60 mph and they push you to lease a truck within the first year and the payment? $572.00 to $678.00 a week and that is off the top before you pay for fuel, tire account, the 3 cpm added to the lease payment, taxes, then yourself.

Do what you feel you need to do but be careful about what you choose to do.

Stop looking at the negatives and the always small picture that comes with it and look at the big picture and the future that lies ahead.

 

That's all great in your hypothetical world, but it doesn't come close to reality. For one thing you don't just drive. You have to stop at shippers and receivers. You have to wait to be assigned loads. Taking your numbers and cutting them in half is more realistic, especially for the guy just starting out. At CRST you have to prove yourself. After you do that then you will get the good runs. And the pay moves up as you go along.

I do agree with what you said about looking at the positives. Just trying to keep it realistic.

 

you're a grown man.

You quit because your girlfriend didn't cut it?

 

I actually left that part out because I took for granite that most people realize you do more than drive and that you actually stop at shippers and receivers docks.

And the part about hypethetical world, well I also did say somewhere in there that you can run miles if you and your partner/co-driver actually put the peddle to the metal and run hard.

The only way to make any real money is to push and push hard, those who make little to no money don't push as hard as others.

I also believe I said that your truck will break down, nothing works perfect forever and I did mention about showing up past a receivers open time and that you could actually get stuck sitting for a period and went onto say that these kinds of issues will cause you to lose money.

Look, no perfect world exists, you get what you get because you worked hard to get it, those who don't work hard and efficiently, obviously pay the price.

Be Safe Out There.

 

you know driving is a way of life, and for some who have no clue crst may be just the wake-up call between rude night dispatch and getting money taken and lets not forget if you ask for itemized list of deductions they can not give you one I have had my cdl since 1990 so was not a inexperienced driver. So new how to trip plan, and new how to do paper logs and e-logs. I also was accounts receivable secretary and accounts payable secretary so now how to figure everything out I have never had a blemish on my cdl in 21 years not so much as a speeding ticket but seems funny applied to colonial to drive crst gave them a false statement and they would not hire me but low and behold get a rehire letter from crst offering me a hiring bonus to come back to them well contacted Debbie in Fontana and ask her after they stole 10,000.00 do you think I am going to come back to crst? she replied no I told her good Idea. this was yesterday 2-29-2012.

 

Yeah I almost made the mistake here at crst.But,instead of signing the contract i just went into kirkwood paid them the 2000.00 got my crst 2 weeks driving school certificate and went to a better company starting off at .32 a mile for 3months then .39 a mile at the 6month mark..Team driving with my wife.Better trucks,better pay,better life overall and the training center didnt smell like piss.It actually smelled like roses..was like going from hell to heaven.