My Expierence at CR England

so im supposed to start cre school on the 25th and also do not plant to lease will i be ok if i do team will they keep me or just say get out and will i make any money at all doing team

 

What ever happened to this guy? No updates?

 

How is everyone doing? I'm in Indiana waiting on a load, hopefully I will get detention pay.

My current student has that know-it-all-ism attitude and we are always arguing about everything. He likes to tell me how to drive and the other day in California he tried to convince me that we are allowed in the carpool lane because we are two people in the truck. The good thing is that he only has about a week and a half to go and his driving is good, he just stays in the lanes that are for four wheelers only and doesn't seem to realize what a truck route is. Hopefully it will come together for him at the end.

I'm sure during his phase 2 he will get a ticket for something since he doesn't grasp the concept that you have to read every single sign on the freeways and surface streets.

Definitely looking forward to home time in two weeks and plan to run solo for awhile, burned out on training!

 

He just completed his upgrades yesterday and is ready to roll.

 

Well Dewey husband is in about the same shape after almost a month with his student, he's tired of the no sleep too. Wish they would just run the trucks and give you loads and some miles where you all didn't have to worry about students but CRE couldn't make money that way I am afraid. This students wife said he either stuck with the training and have a job or don't plan on coming home. He is due to phase 2 whenever they get back to Salt Lake, then I guess another one.


It sounds like yours has no common sense at all either; they are getting the bottom of the pickle barrel it seems like; not saying everyone is this way, but start adding up the numbers. This is why they have so many accidents and rollovers, not enough time learning how to drive without being on runs; they should be paying you guys more for teaching these people for them since CRE is supposed to be a school.

Enjoy your time off.

 

Does your husband ever get time to relax and run solo for a little bit?

What CRE needs to do is stop charging us trainers the $37 a day to have the student on the truck. The student causes about $50 a day damage to the truck with his/her grinding and over-revving. England needs to redo their training program somehow and maybe their retention rate and churn wouldn't be so bad.

 

Did he get into a company position? They have that Walmart dedicated in his area, day cabs.

 

Dewey I just went back and figured what he cleared for the 1st 4 weeks of May running solo, he cleared $687., he has one $100. advance a week to pay tolls and etc, coffee, he eats in the truck mostly so subtract off $400. and that leaves $287. for the 4 weeks pay. This was running solo while he was waiting for them to get him to Salt Lake for 1st phase training.

While team driving they also seemed to be starving him out on miles since we were paying the man a flat weekly rate which on some weeks it might have fallen short of the 12 c mile, or over on others, but on some occasions you have only less than 3200 miles for the week, I believe the top week was around 4900 miles. Some weeks his co-driver made more than he did. Perhaps it was because it was slow because of the season and things were not going great the beginning months of the year, but since I have heard and read the ways CRE has done other truckers the more I believe they plan on making sure you are broke unless you do what they want. OH and his lease payment, insurance and permits run $782. a week, he uses the route solution except for a maybe 4-5 times, his truck going thru the mountains with heavy loads has only gotten 3.71mpg on some loads and it is a 2012 model which is has the preventative maintenance done, and he runs Lucas in it.


It has been a year now just about and this is the first month I have been able to get the house payment and land payment caught up and paid in the same month, this is only after having the couple of students he has had so far and having some good miles. If it weren't for having to stay up and babysit it would be great, but you guys do not get enough sleep having to have one year ####ed to the front even after 3 weeks of training, esp with some of the students that are showing up that have no incentive to work at all.


I don't think CRE should be having you all pay them at all, but I am sure this is one way they think they can resolve any liability if they wreck the truck, etc. afterall you are the one who has them working on your truck also. You are only doing a favor for CRE in making sure the person stays long enough to either lease a truck and make no money and quit, or if they so happen to get a dedicated run or company run where they will stay on, either way the government is paying the tuition that CRE is collecting to train them, an oxymoron if you ask me. If it were a real training school it would be like a Roadmaster or something like that, not these dime a dozen places.

It's one thing to work your tail off but quite another to be used all the time. He has a great DM, but I am sure they are all told what to do or not to do as far as the giving of miles, it's just too bad for a company like CRE to be the way they are.

I was wondering how you could do it the last time when you said you were going to run solo for awhile and still stay afloat. We have 4 little grandkids we help with also because of daughter being on disability and her husband is no account, this makes it even worse on us I am afraid. He has even thought about going out as an independant contractor, but I am not sure how that works, and if it would be even worse. You guys have got to have something to count on somewhere and not go bankrupt in the process.


Oh well so much for rambling. I appreciate your thougths, I know we aren't the only ones out there at least with the same ideas. Have a good Sunday I hope.

 

I'm going to address the DM first. I'm sure the DM is nice guy and your husband really likes him - as a person. But as a DM, he sucks and is probably lazy. He's sugarcoating your husband and screwing him over because your husband doesn't "rock the boat".

When my son and I ran at CRE as team, we averaged 6000 miles a week, that's for all weeks including our home time. Our DM was an idiot, nice guy, but an idiot. At least every 10 days we had to go over his head to the supervisor to ensure that we got our loads and our miles. And every other day we had to call him up a have a heart to heart to let him know that he hadn't gotten us our load and if he didn't get it together we were going to talk to the supervisor.

Now for the pay ... I left CRE. There is no reason to work so hard for so little. I'm now with Swift. I'm solo, I do not train. I'm averaging $750 a week in my pocket take home for every week this year, including my hometime weeks, which I have taken 4 weeks off year to date. I also put $.10 a mile in MY maintenance acount, which currents stands at $7800. Unlike CRE the maintenance account is mine and I have unfettered access to it. A simple macro on the QC and any amount up to the entire account is instantly transferred to Comdata account.

Can you make it a CRE, yes. Dewey is a testament to that. One of my classmates is still there and like Dewey he has been able to buy his own truck - but he's single and literaly has no bills and spends his hometime with his parents. But the question is why? There are so many other places you can go to where it so much easier to accomplish the same thing.

 

Ya I know there are a lot of better opportunities out there and I really want to get a dry van and run on my own authority. Most veteran drivers I talk to at the truck stop can't believe I still work for England when my truck is paid off. My pay is good but that's because I train. Most O/O tell me I can make the same if not more running solo and on my own authority.

I figure this time next year my tenure and CRE will be over and I will have my own authority. I can't even imagine what it must feel like going home and not worrying about a DM calling me up and asking when I am are ready to reload out.