CRETE - A Year in Review

It perhaps would have been easier for you ,with your business acumen, to get your own truck, pay for your own fuel ,tires and wear on your truck, and then bounce yourself 500 miles. Hell, you could even bounce yourself 5000 miles. Better yet, expand and become a 5000 truck company and bounce your drivers 500 miles each all over the place and show crete and all the other 'coolie carriers' how to run a succesful and profitable business.

 

Compensated for what? When you went to work for the 'coolie carrier' did you agree to get paid by the mile or by the speed of the truck?
You know, owner operator trucks are ungoverned . With your experience in running a profitable truck company, you should have just got your own truck . You could then have driven at triple digit speeds . By your way of thinking, that would be an automatic pay increase.

 

CRETE CARRIER tracks every bodys log-entrys with satelite,I have doubts on how can you us a gross of 62.000 a year(remember the accident they had in FL)no more
crazy staff there anymore.

 

BUMP- "For the sake of what originally was an otherwise civil thread"

 

Compensated for the decrease in income. If I have to explain the math to you, then you are not the bidnessman you are pretending to be. The reason that trucking has gotten so bad, is because too many lemmings put up with unacceptable crap and then just say to themselves, "Well, that's just trucking."

Until they change the way drivers are paid, it will continue to be a downhill
ride. And drivers will continue to be exploited. If you were paid by the hour, how long do you think you would ever sit at a grocery warehouse or at a terminal waiting for a load. Carrier and customer inefficiencies only exist because they could care less about ripping you off. If they had to pay, they would care quick.

 

I am neither a bidnessman ,to use your word,nor do I pretend to be.
What decrease in income? You are paid by the miles you drive.Not by how fast your truck goes. If you can not wrap your head around that simple fact, then you are exactly the bidnessman (your word) that you make yourself out to be. How many miles were you getting when the trucks were at 65mph. What did the miles fall to ,as a result of the truck being cut to 62mph? The bidnessman that you are,I bet you have documented evidence to support your claim of a decrease in income AS A RESULT OF THE TRUCK SPEED BEING REDUCED. I await that evidence.

If a 5% reduction in speed, a 3mph reduction from 65mph to 62mph affects your pay then you were in a bad situation to begin with.

As for being paid by the hour, the part of the country where I currently reside, I was an hourly paid driver without benefits, and between the rate per hour,and the hours available each week, I was making much less than I am making now being OTR with Crete and that is my bottom line ,so all you who have a problem with OTR,and I admit that there is a lot that can be improved, you are welcome to come to my part of the world and take the hourly paid jobs and get paid for everything you do since you are on the clock,and sleep in your own bed every night and then take home $350-$400 every week, because I don't want that job.I am looking at a larger picture .I have certain goals in life, and a larger paycheck earned legally is going to allow me to acheive those goals faster.

I am one of those lemmings you describe , only the crap is acceptable to me.Any time it becomes unacceptable I will quietly quit, not whine and complain. The world owes me nothing. I care about myself,and I have family and friends that care about me also. It's not a requirement of mine for an employer to 'care about me'. They should care about their profits,as I would ,if I were a bidnessman (your word).

'That's trucking', for me.

 

As an O/O it is in my business intrest to drive a slower speed. I drive 60 +/- mph wherever I go, and actually make more money by saving fuel. I'm a one man operation, just think of 5000 trucks experiencing a cost savings. In a though economy what do you think this cost savings means to a company driver? I agree it probably wont be a raise, but how about something just as importatnt? YOU KEEP YOUR JOB AT YOUR CURRENT PAY RATE! The cost savings allows Crete's rate per mile to stay competitive, espicially when competing against low-ball carriers willing to haul a load just to pay for their fuel, and these are small carriers, not the large "coolies". I know as I've researched the rates in hopes of finding myself a niche to haul in under my own authority. In this economy I would not make any money because of what these low-ball carriers are doing to the freight rates.

At 60 mph vs 65+mph there is a reduction in miles that are able to be traveled, and to a company driver that can affect their gross pay. Want deny that. However, when compaired to other OTR opportunities (i.e. other carriers cutting pay, {not just for nebies as Crete did}, turning down their trucks speed as well, cutting or raising the price of medical benefits, ect...) your going to be hard pressed to find a better carrier in the OTR segment.

I agree that the pay structure for OTR needs to be upgraded, like yesterday!, but it is what it is for now. Until that day arrives we must voice our concerns to our U.S. Congress. Both as individuals, and collectively through industry groups. Big Al, are you doing your part? Or are you content to just ##### and moan on a trucking forum?

 

Amen!!! Finally some not so common "common sense."

Thanks!!

 

No common sense there. Crete wouldn't have the need to bounce trucks if they didn't overhire drivers. When freight was real dismal, you would still find 50 new hires in Marietta every Monday. If they had to pay all those drivers for sitting for the weekend, they wouldn't hire more drivers than they had freight for.

 

I think you need to read this entire thread and then make a more informed contribution to the discussion.