CRST - Good Company?????

This isnt entirely true, once you have that experience, thats pretty much what they are going to go on. Regardless of who trains you, we all get experience on the same highways. Right now, for you and I, with less than a year in, yes, it could. But hit that two year mark, and it really doesnt matter anymore

 

You might rethink the part where you paid NOTHING for school. Other than the expenses CRST bills you for that you repay, your 8 month contract results in this... Starting at .22/mile for the team ... if you drive 5000/week as a team...

CRST MATH: "split the miles" first: 2500 miles X .22 = $550

(SOME) OTHER COMPANIES MATH: 5000 miles X .44 (for the team) = $2200 split that ... $1100

The difference is $550 more, working for another company each week. Granted you're not @.22 for the whole first 6 months but, to make it easy, keep it @ .22 ... that's a difference of $13,200 for the first 6 months ... working for CRST vs (some)other companies. That's not NOTHING. CRST is effectively paying .11/mile.

I'm very grateful for the people online here who finally explained this to me. Took me a while to get it.

 

Wow this thread is full of crap. You need to remember the posters here man so you'll know not to listen to these braindead people any more.
I just checked their pay chart for driver trainees and their pay scale is on par or slightly higher than the other companies. Their pay scale for your time in training is MUCH higher. The average pay while a trainee is in a trainers truck is $300-350 a week flat rate. CRST seems to pay you (low) mileage pay.
Also note that team is radically different than solo. You'll get more sleep while turning more miles in a team truck.
CRST does not have a bad rep. the places these guys trained do: Guarantee these guys are all from usa truck, pam, swift,werner jb, prime. (Btw werners dont have a bad DRIVING rep they have a bad PARKING rep... swear to god they just stop anywhere and go to sleep). MMM driver in particular doesnt seem to know how the trucking industry works.

ANY newbie company you go to is going to pay what Experienced drivers call "crap money". Thats because they can pull .40 to .55 a mile.. because theyre experienced. But that .33 or .36 or whatever a mile is a lot more than youd make at a local job. I started back in the day at .26 a mile i think. Left the company at .30 or .32. Still pulled 45k+ every single year from the first one.

Good luck man whichever company you go with and dont listen to truckign board bs. The only company i'd avoid is swift because of its bad rep (it puts anyone in a truck literally so their good drivers get bad reps). Even jb's rep is improving and ive literally never talked to a jb l/p who didnt love it. (theres good reason in their past for the bad jb rep)

 

There are different divisions of CRST and Cat Dedicated is the best one I've been on other then the airfreight dedicated. I think with any company it is what it is..A person could be extremely happy there but its all in the attitude..If a person goes there with all the attitude he or she will never make it at CRST. They have been good to me even though I quit and am now in the process of going back. All I need is a codriver

 

I went there with 2 months experience and started at 26cpm, it's split the miles not the pay. My codriver was getting 32cpm since he had more experience. We rarely had less then 6-6500 miles a week, had a 2013 cascadia and open fuel card. I know some people on the expedited side had bad experiences but any job has problems. I personally made more money there running team then I did going solo which is why I'm going back

 

I loved teams (just not teaming with my buddy). Id love to team with the right person

 

I have been with CRST for about 2 months as an owner operator in the flatbed division. I own my own truck.

I only got into flatbed because I heard a hard worker could earn more money hauling flatbed than dry van.

Based on my short experience here, I was definitely making more as a company driving hauling dry van (and never getting my hands dirty) 3 years ago than I do hauling flatbed as an owner operator right now.

There doesn't even feel like there is a system is in place. I take a load, and they tell you to start calling ahead immediately to agents in that area to arrange a load back. I've worn out my cellphone battery twice in one day calling for loads, getting put on lists, having smoke blown up my shorts, waiting on hold for my overworked dispatcher for 30 minutes, etc. And in the end, I sit waiting anyway. Being a company driver was better, because then I could just relax and read a book, go for a walk, whatever. But here, I feel like all my free time is spent worrying about trying to find a load.

The CRST recruiter told me the average load was $2 to truck including fuel, tarp, etc. I figured if I was out for 7 days at a time, 2000 miles shouldn't be hard, and 1500 miles would be low for 7 days. I based my projections on this info.

So far, my average paying load is closer to $1.65, with long deadheads and long waits in between. The good loads do happen, but they're rare. Very rare.

I am a hard worker, and I never complain about tarping in wind, strapping in ice, whatever. But working here makes me feel very frustrated, and makes me feel like a loser. And I feel horrible for telling my wife we'd be making money soon. The take home pay has been pathetic.

I plan to stick with this until I find a better company, hopefully soon. I have a zero CSA score and all clean records. I feel like I'm wasting my time here.

 

Oh yeah, and the fuel discounts are no where near what they claimed.

 

Only you can tell if it's wrong. Dispatch makes $ off of us. Higher paying loads are going to the company first. 0/0's get the rest. Pretty simple really.

 

All rookie companies have a bad reputation in some form or another. It comes down to you to sift through and figure out who's crap you can put up with the best. No company will ever be perfect, sadly. One thing I have witnessed first hand over and over though is how many CRST trucks you see sitting in a truck stop. Many times I had to wonder if I accidentally drove into one of their terminals and didn't realize it, double checking that Pilot sign. I have never seen a company have so many trucks sit, all over the nation, more than CRST. But that's just my experience of what I see out there.