Safety means nothing to CRE

Ronin.... Thanks.

Not shoutin' at the rooftops regarding England's safety as a whole. I was writing my thoughts regarding this thread's particular "safety concerns" and England's probably safe way of handling the scenario.

 

I know I said we were through, but I just can't resist. Why is it all the CRE haters feel it necessary to throw in all these "statistics"? CRE preaches safety on a daily basis. Safety always comes down to the driver. Kinda like how the chain is only as strong as its weakest link and unfortunately, this one has a buttload. As result of all this, hopefully England will get tired of this eventually and start tossing the morons back out on the street where probly most of them came from.

 

Another thing, its good that England has that "we'll give mostly everybody a chance" attitude but dang, not everybody's cut out to drive a truck, much less, safely.

 

Well stated. The driver is ultimately responsible for what he / she does out on the road. The company (any trucking company) can do everything in their power to instill safety, but it is the driver that must practice and follow the principles.

Again, well stated. It is unfortunate that CR England does try to give most everyone a chance at the opportunity to drive a truck for a living, and then gets stepped on by the numerous people out there that are "CRE Haters" and the like. If it weren't for companies like CRE - many people wouldn't be able to obtain that typical "One-Year Driving Experience Required" in order for the driver to move on to another company.

 

Exactly. I'm sure 2.5 years ago swift, covenant, werner, to name a few probly would have hired is and put us through school and ultimately gave us a chance but without it, we wouldn't be driving today. Only bein halfway through this three year lease, I'm not sure what we'll do next but if we do continue driving, it probly won't be with England simply because we would want more than newb wages..... But all in all, I'm glad we got the chance.

About 15 years ago, a buddy of mine wanted to drive truck otr. He went some driving school in Denver, spent like a week and a half, got his CDL. Applied at Rocor, got denied because of no otr experience. Went to werner, got denied again. He pretty much gave up on it at that point and landed few end dump jobs here and there along with an oil field outfit driving bobtail water trucks so the money spent on his CDL wasn't a total waste but he didn't get to do what he ultimately wanted to do.

 

the company I'm with has a lax culture of safety and compliance. We've made some changes and I get to be the enforcer of the new rules. It's very interesting to see that the problem is more often with the office staff than it is with the drivers. When the scores start rising, or when you walk in and their already high, it's time to take a step back and look at the big picture. Cracking down on the correct issues, and coaching the drivers to act in their best interest from a safety/compliance standpoint. I'll take care of your driver manager.

Well that's not totally true, i'll upset you driver manager. Then they'll curse me out, and try to get me fired. However since I'm in the right, there isn't enough grounds to get me fired. So we focus on retraining. You know like it might be a good idea to dispatch your drivers legally and things along those lines.

I have no idea how CRE operates, but my guess is you don't get that bad if the office staff is doing their part to the best of their abilities. Preaching safety only get the message across for so long before people start tuning out. A new approach needs to be tried to keep the message fresh, and the ears open.

 

So, gimmie a few examples of how the problem is "more often" the fault odf the office staff? But before you answer, keep this in mind, CRE, the saftey team, dispactchers, instructers, teachers, nobody but the driver is driving the truck. With that said, how else can the office staff be blamed? They put out jam packed online safety meetings every month. They even do conference calls.

If Im getting what yer saying, I dont know about other drivers, but I have never had a DM ask me to do anything illegally. Well, maybe an occasionall "stretch the tandems out" so they arent overweight just to observe some other state's bridge-law(other than California's since they are so anal about it)so on that part, I cant see puttin the blame on the dispatchers.

Ive never had a reason to doubt CRE's training and safety program. But I can understand where yer comin from, though. Why are some of these drivers being so irresponsible? They really cant use the excuse that they didnt know because it was taught at some point....

Hmmm, if yer right, how much more proof is needed to think the drivers are getting to where they dont care about safety.

Somethin'.......

 

I've umm heard of a company where a dispatcher would call a driver let's say in GA around 2pm today. Then they'll ask "So you'll make your delivery on time for tomorrow right?". Doesn't seem so bad, except the delivery appt will be for tomorrow AM in let's say IA. At this point the driver cannot be expected to make on time delivery. But instead of trying to find a relay, it's just expected that the driver will get it done. As long as the driver can hide his time well enough the log department can't catch it. Or they don't want to catch it, i'm not really sure.

So with the example, yes it's the drivers fault for not saying no. However, the company has a responsibility to prevent the driver from being in this situation in the first place. When a problem arises a solution needs to be found. The easiest choice is to have the driver run illegal and make delivery. The correct choice would be to find a relay or reschedule. After the issue is resolve it's time to focus on how to correct these behaviors to prevent them from popping up again. Finding the route cause of the issue and learning from the previous issue. So in this example both the driver and dispatcher have serious issues. The driver because he mismanaged his time, and drove illegal. The dispatcher because he didn't know/care that he was asking the driver to run in violation, and didn't counsel the driver because the delivery was made on time.

Or something like that.

 

It really amazes me that you CRE drivers are totally brainwashed into thinking that a trainer training 2 students at a time is a normal, acceptable practice!

WAKE UP PEOPLE! There are so many better training companies out there!

Quit before you end up DEAD!

 

A trainer having two students is probably not a wise choice. However it's really not dangerous. I don't work for CRE, I think it's probably a mistake but it's not unsafe.