Going with CRST, comments please

good fer you! i leave sunday morning for columbia s.c. for tmc. are you as nervous as i am?

 

not yet! i think i was more nervous trying to figure out if i would be hired by anyone LOL

 

Hey trucker jaw,

i live in orlando,fl. i heard about CRST but how many miles can a solo driver and team driver get per week? you know how much owner operators get per mile loaded and empty? thanks.

 

I just now saw this so hopefully you check back. CRST doesn't like to hire solo drivers unless you are an o/o. As a team like any where else its hit and miss. There where times when my team would hit +7k in a week and others where we sat a lot of it. With out looking at any hard numbers I would say a good team 'could' average +5k miles a week for the year if you commit to spending plenty of time on the road.

As far as o/o pay goes you are paid a percentage of the pay for the freight. A couple of my friends that are there said the are getting around 1.10-1.25 per loaded mile average right now. But there is no empty pay so you need to factor that in. Usually you will have about 100 dead head miles between loads also hunting down an empty and other things is unpaid as well.

I haven't worked there in about 4 months but I do have some friends that are still there.

 

thx, 1.10-1.20 is kind of low. i know that they did % pay but wasn't sure what that would be per mile. thanks.

 

I forgot to say that this is NOT counting the fuel surcharge so actual pay would be a little higher. Also thats just an average. I have heard of some loads that are paying as high as 2.50 and as low as .75 per mile and you have the option to turn down loads so for the most part its up to you how low you go on pay. I just didn't want to give you too high of an expectation.

 

I drove for CRST for 2 Years and will not drive for another student company. It seems they give all the miles to lower paid students other than the experienced drivers. I was lucky enough to partner with a cool person for the time I was there but I am a stay by my self kind of guy. We also had a new international with lots of breakdowns and the company never could get there heads out of there ?;&/ long enough to help us. They do not care about maint. enough like other companies would. Good Luck to you and yours.

 

My brother is starting with CRST and I was trying to figure out something about his pay. He's going to be teaming but we couldnt figure out if he and his partners miles were going to be included in his paycheck. I thought all teams were paid for all miles driven but it didnt look like this on the brochure thing he had.

 

I agree with the previous responder. I could bash CRST all day, however I could not praise them. And I won't bore you with the same old complaints that you have heard already.

I had no CDL and they helped me get one. (That is where you will start to see their style of underhandedness.

Like everyone else, my biggest complaint was Co-drivers. In 6 months I spent 37 days (without pay) sitting waiting for co-drivers that never showed or quit without telling dispatch. But you got that problem beat. (good for you).

The money was horrible, but the good news was that when I changed companies at the end of 10 months, I got a great bump in pay with my next company and driving solo was a dream come true.

My trainer allowed me only one small bag of clothes on HER truck, yet she had a portapotty behind the drivers seat, a litterbox and two cats. The truck smelled like piss...so I refused to go with her and got a different trainer that was much nicer. He was a racist, but I can live with that for 28 days.

Maybe my experience would have been better with them had it started out better. but from day one The training and orientation were very high stress. I was under the impression that upon being approved for orientation that we had a job. But that is not true. Up until the very last minute they can send you home because a job reference did not respond or a state did not send your DMV report in time. Things that I thought had been settled while I was sitting in a dirty hot field learning how to drive the truck.
The good news is, other companies DO get you approved before you get sent to orientation so not to waste your time or their money.

To sum it up. Not a bad way to get your foot in the door, but start looking at other companies and talking to other drivers about better opportunities you can jump on when you contract expires.

Best wishes.