CR England -- BE CAREFUL!

The one who don't make it in the lease program are the one who don't know how to manage their time, business, etc... For instance if you are late with a load constantly your Driver Manager is not going to be very please with your performance, you will get runs just to make the lease payment and your pay will suck. BUT if you are always early and ready for another load you will get the load before you finish the load your on, I have seen it, been there and done it over and over with trainers. England has the miles, miles and miles. What they don't have and that what they try to teach students is how to be on time, run your fuel, and run your business and not waste your time.

 

Wow, I hope it works out for you.

 

it may be better there now after ooida took them to court (and won) for their illegal leasing practice. You are right no credit no job at least you are trying to better yourself good luck!!

 

The lawsuit situation was several years back, and they really didn't get slammed at all this time - they got in a LITTLE trouble 7-8 years ago.

Interesting info on the .22 cpm you get while in Phase 2 training. My wife and I signed on with CRE in early 2009 and were both experienced CDL holders. We did 109,000 miles in 6 months, netted SIXTEEN CENTS PER MILE...SPLIT... do the math if you don't know what that means.

109,000 x .16 divided by 26 weeks = $17,440.

Works out to splitting $670 a week...$335 each. Or a TEAM making $35k a year while averaging 4200 miles per week - oh....and FORGET the 6k miles per week once you're out of training. It pays them better to run the dog stuff out of training teams versus experienced teams.

The final blow? We thought I'd get my $5500 back after leaving. That was when we had $5500 in our maintenance reserve, and they took every single penny of it while basically repainting the entire truck - after only running 6 months and hand washing and waxing it - the truck was darmed close to perfect and current on a PM when we turned it in. If you re-lease, by the way, they'll roll over the majority of your maintenance account to the new truck, versus taking all of it. More than a little sneaky.

There's the facts - YOU decide.

 

The decal on the back of their trailers clearly states the company's business plan:
Lease-Train-Drive.
Good luck to you Arni. You stick to your guns! Your attitute will serve you well (hopefully at cr england until you get the road time you need to move on). Read the fine print.

 

Sure its not Learn - To - Drive

 

It still blows my mind that with such a turn over rate that CRE is able to stay in business. In pretty much any other business, you would not have a business for long.

 

Why is it always a driver with little to no experience arguing with people on how good lease programs are before they even make a payment?

They call it your business.........it's not your businss in any way,what it is a "subsidy" you provide them for the privilege of sleeping in THEIR truck.

Way too many suckers coming into trucking and all these lease programs companies are pushing prove it.

 

Anyone thinking of starting a small business and putting tens of thousands of dollars at risk ought to have a sound business plan in place. Run the numbers; it isn't rocket science. There's income on one side of the ledger and expenses on the other. Some of these are variable, and you better figure out what the worst case is, and what your exit strategy is if things aren't working. If you can't run a spreadsheet and do the math, you may not have some of the required basic skills to succeed.

In their enthusiasm, some people will just jump in with the thought that it'll all just work out, or they'll sort out the details later. Most times, it doesn't work out that way. Small businesses of all types fail all the time for these reasons; it's not unique to trucking. But some prospective O/Os fail to look at it as a business.

Being an O/O sounds interesting to me - after I get into a truck, decide if I can handle the work and make can a decent profit from it. If I can figure those parts out, and it looks good, I'll try to figure out a way to buy my own truck, rather than sign up for an LTO. I don't believe the LTO model is unworkable in all cases, but it does shift risk and costs from the carrier to the operator, and the cost of failure can be catastrophic for a lot of people, as the stories here make clear.

Look out for your own interests; no one else will.

 

What if you sit for a week with no work? Bad weather has you shut down? Truck broke down, so not only no income, but costing you money to fix. Plus continuing expenses, truck payments, insurance, etc.

Blow a motor? Now you are totally screwed.

You are totally at the mercy of the outfit you sign on with. They control how much you will make (or not make).

Good luck.