C.R. England and Sons, Inc. - West Valley, Ut.

well you see Tip i think its from those advertisments from the various driving schools. you know, you see a fist held up into the sky, with loads of cash falling out of it...??? and the sub-line reads something like: " how would you like to make this much cash from driving a big rig"?

i think that there are so many people hungry for a better life/income from their "ordinary" jobs or jobs gone over seas, that they are blinded by hard factual facts that they need to know. do/did some of these people ever buy a house, for instance..? would they buy a house blindly? i think not. you need an appraisal, inspection, pre-approval mortgage, escrow, and so on and so forth. buying a house is what, the biggest investment/purchase a person/couple can ever make?? so, they would need to be "educated" in home buying.

now, fast forward to leasing/buying a big rig. seems simple, right? money down, no money down, no credit checks, no co-signers, NO EXPERIENCE, and so on. these companies make it so easy to "BE YOUR OWN BOSS" that the lure is as tasty to an idiot as it would be to a fish..............!!

i hate to say this, but i truely do believe that most of those idiots deserve to be "taken" by all of those lease/purchase deals, since they really don't seem to do any "homework" on these deals like they would do on a home purchase. a mortgage is a mortgage, once you get over the $60,000 mark, you're into high monthly payments, except, at least, with a home mortgage, you WILL have equity................................ain't got much equity in a depreciated big rig now, right....?????

 

I have to agree with you, Pro. But if I had my own rig, the "expert knowledge" you're referring regarding the O/O thing, and were ready to go rolling, I'd still pass on Swift or England. This is because I believe companies should treat their drivers like investments, not grease rags. Any company that is going to mistreat its breadwinners is someone not worthy of my services. So what if they'd treat ME like a king? I just couldn't bring myself to work for those companies knowing they've screwed others around like those in those testimonials.

 

In defense of C.R. England and Swift (understand I'm saying this because it's TRUE), some of those posts at Rip-Off from ex-drivers ARE a bit "old".

That doesn't matter to me, though. I understand what drivers are like. 99% will take a hit on the chin and not report to any website such as Rip-Off that they've been had. Given this fact, coupled with the fact that England has nearly a page of testimonies and Swift has SEVERAL pages of testimonies, I won't be working for either of these outfits before the year 2106.

 

How did Crete Carriers do at Rip-Off?

Read all the testimonies of drivers who've been ripped off at Crete:

Rip-off Report.com - badbusinessbureau.com

 

The funniest thing about Swift is it seems all the "dolts" go there. Well, it just SEEMS that is the case. The truth is Swift and England are run by people who are "trained" (because of their religion) to be, well, money-grubbers. These people from Utah always have their noses in the air sniffing for desperate people they can lure into their domains and then ream them like there's no tomorrow. This is because these folks really do believe there may be "no tomorrow" and had better 'get while the getting is good'.

God and money don't mix too well, especially when it comes to trucking companies.

Lots of guys lease onto Swift who don't know much about O/O-ing. We see testimonies from many of those later who've gone this path. Who knows how many other guys going that path get ripped but don't report it. Same with C.R. England.

But lots of other drivers who also don't know much about 0/0-ing lease onto carriers like Crete, Roehl, and other "good" companies. Do these companies act like sharks who smell blood in the water and rip these drivers just because "they can"? Find out for yourself. Read their testimonies at Rip-Off, especially from drivers who've leased onto Crete. These companies treat their O/O's like they themselves want to be treated. They also treat their drivers like investments, investments that will bring future profits. They don't treat O/O's as people to be hired on today, exploited tonight and tomorrow, and thrown in the garbage tomorrow night.

 

I got my CDL and managed to goof my arrival date with ROEHL, ok that sucked. The next date to get a trainer was a few weeks later, however, I needed employment now. So I chose CR England and cleared things up with ROEHL to come back later, say six months. Well it might not work out that way.

DAY 1 Orientation - I had no idea what were doing from day to day, they tell you very shortly before hand, suprise. Breakfast is a doughnut and coffee, but there's not enough to go around. We got drug tested and that silly physical that's always required. After which they bussed me out the yard and you prove you can drive, ok easy. Lunch in cup-o-noodles. And man those England bus drivers drive fast, either that or the bus is being extremely overworked. Dinner, well who knows, I never found it. But then again free food is free food.

DAY 2 Orientation - None of this paid of course, guess that's normal. We signed and dated around 30 pages of hiring stuff, filled out quizzes, did a bunch of reading that kind of stuff. At about this point I met a woman who was married to a trucker who had 20 years experience. Well seems she went with CRT or something like that, basically CR England leased a truck to her husband and it went very badly. At this point people were starting to disappear of the two bus loads of us. Must have been the drugs I guess.

DAY 3 Orientation - We did more quizzes, a final exam and more people left this company for various reasons. More horror stories came about and my roommate went home due to taking vicodin. Seems he was older decided to take pain killers, another guy almost couldn't read when he was asked to read aloud. One guy puked out of the van, where do they find these people. Even the new pay scale call Super something was well below super at 26 cents a mile. They say you can earn 50 cents a mile, but that is only after ten years and only if you do short runs. Not all the outlets work, the shower, well lets not even go there.

DAY 4 Orientation - They finally cleared me to go to work, odd, you would think that was already done by now. Ok now things go a lot worse and I am not even in at truck yet, even my 2nd roommate is telling me horror stories and he's been working for two months. They wouldn't let him go home for 60 days. My roommate is going home now. Seems he is quitting and going with ROEHL, as am I now. Man I hope this ends smoothly as things got worse. Had an irate guy show up, seems trucking winds these people up to the point where they want to kick your ********* if anything goes wrong. The guy left his stuff here and the front desk wouldn't take it, or hold on too it. Sadly a few shirts were left in my room somehow--don't ask, I have no idea. The guy came in pissed and ready to fight, why who knows. All this for a shirt, give me a break. Many of these guys are wound so tight I'm afraid to start trucking with anyone working with CR England. You can cut the negativity with a butter knife. All should go well tomorrow and I am off to ROEHL as is my roommate. Guess I am going home now until my ROEHL date. Sad to say I might not even be driving and England truck, what was I thinking? Oh, yea it was a money thing. Don't go here, it's a scary place.

Just found out they had 9 driving school grads out of 42, guess that’s normal for a three week course at 2900 dollars--NOT!

Oh please let ROEHL have room for one more, and CR England can keep the one days pay, just delete me, I was never here. At least with ROEHL you get a professional road atlas, pen, calculator, flash light ect. With CR England you get nothing and the low pay to do it with. But wait there's more. My roommate marked down the miles from the odometer when he was out, it seems his trainer only drove 200 - 300 miles a day, now a trainee might drive oh 660 miles and be told they were late and needed to make up time. Hmmm, sound a bit off well only as off as the money. Lease operators getting training pay, .87 a mile for all new trainee drivers, and .87 mile for their miles. Hmmm, something seems a bit off here from what the drivers are saying.

In closing I am new and don't know much here, but from what I have seen and been told in this company I have only one thing to say. Run Forest, Run!!!!

Avery,

 

I lived in Salt Lake City for 8 years, and learned there IS at least one thing in the world that is sure besides death and taxes--a C.R. England help-wanted ad in the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper every day of the world.

Yeap, your's truly has known CRE is a crappy outfit for years. I would indeed drop dead before even setting foot on C.R. England's lot over there off Pioneer Road. Even if I wanted to set foot on the lot, it would probably be so crowded with empty-cleaned outs I wouldn't be able to cram my car in, meaning I'd have to park out on the street.

 

I was all set to ask C R England for my bus ticket. But after reading the threads here, I have changed my mind about them. I live on the east coast, and I have a cdl A for 2 years now, I am 56 years old. None of my experience can be verified, and its only about 2k miles anyway . Can anyone recomend a company that offers a good training, and lease program. I don't have to get home too much, but I just don't want to get skrewed around. Thanks to all that add there wisdom here, be safe my friends

 

There are a few select companies that offer a legitimate training program and the largest is Schneider, the reason being is that they have done a complete turn around in the past seven years..

The companies to stay away from are Swift and JB Hunt..

Since you already have a class A licence the battle is less then half over and do some reaserch before hiring on to anybody...

 

For what it's worth Slip, I'm either going with Werner or a local carrier in my area. I know that some folks have had "less than stellar" experiences with Werner, but they have a lot to commend them IMO. I guess I'll form my own opinions if I go that way... I've already got my CDL and they have a flatbed program I'm interested in with plenty of miles...