How much can I make with CRE?

I understand OTR truck driving is hard, but that is way out of line what they did to you about home time. I drove many years ago, and would stay out somtimes 30 days at a time, but not all the time.

 

Three people in a truck? You are joking right?

 

nope no joking about 3 ppl per truck...they are not suppose to but they do it all the time. i have had students that i had to force to sleep in the bunk while i was driving because they are use to sleeping in the jump seat. and ya, they did me wrong on home time buti couldnt really do anything about it except keep running and hope to get headed towards home and see what i could do then.

 

being a female with a male trainer they didnt put anyone else with me and i refused to train more than one at a time. i would train one for the 2 weeks they needed on 2nd phase and then take a month off and run solo to get a lil stress relief form most of them lol and to claim my space back lol.

 

def not ideal for a person with a family or life. they will run you...obviously but yet you dont make enough miles to really pay off in the end. sad, but a lesson learned for sure!

 

That explains why you never got team miles .. the planners look at weekly average over the previous 3 weeks when assigning miles. You never ran team long enough to establish yourself as a team truck in the planners eyes ... the way you get over, is you turn down the solo loads until you get team loads.

 

my dispatch knew how i worked with students. and i dont do one after another and have myself killed or be strung out on no sleep. i gave notice of when i was ready for one and they worked me up to the terminal in week or twos time to get one. when i was running team i would get team loads but then have to wait forever for another because i get stuck in the hard areas to get back out of without deadhead. i couldnt afford to turn down many loads leasing. just like an o/o if i aint movin i aint makin money period. i would get a team length run, just not enough in one week to add up to much. i had a couple of students that knew how to run hard and we did good, but that wasnt always the case either. i kept great communication with my dispatch and load planner (if i needed him). i understand what you are saying, dont get me wrong. i do.

 

If you are wasting too much time on short loads or loads with to much time, you're not only not making money, now you're spending it.


I have one simple rule - get the runs I need, to maximize my income. Too short - what's the back up load; to much time - where do I T-call it; no freight - deadhead and pay my empty miles to my next load ... can't do any of those things - then where do you want me to turn the truck in at.

 

easier said than done with cre. you have freedom as a l/o yes, but with them you stil have to wait for loads or get what they giv eyou. if you deny loads then you wait days. you cant win with them. unless you have a kick butt dispatch that wants you do good. you would thinkg they would want you to since they get paid by your performance....

 

Did it with CRE ... never waited for a load after turning one down. We had a moron as our DM. We had to cuss him out about every other week and get on his supervisors case and he would be OK for awhile, then it was rinse and repeat.

Among the metrics for CRE DMs is retention. Threaten to turn in your truck and mean it, you get the loads. Now you also have to be ready and willing to run the loads ... we were never late and could be relied on to repower a load out of tight spot.