My Experience with CR England so far......

That has a lot to do with what a persons definition of "sucess" is.

 

I would think it would be safe to say that if you don't end up posting another horror story on here to the same caliber as all the others that you have reached some level of success.....

 

Sure. Listen to your elders and the company. learn the lessons, apply the knowledge, work smart and realize that you're not going to start at the top and without real challenges and you have a good shot at success, career and monetarily.

 

Except in the majority of leases, the cards are stacked against you like a three card monty game in a truck stop parking lot. A few will make somewhat of a sucess, again according to what each persons definition of success is, but most will get taken.

No amount of planing, working smart, or anything else, will help. There are too many variables against you, two major ones being the load planner and dispatcher. You get bad ones, and you're done before you start.

Another thing. Do you want a life of any kind outside of the truck? Go home for a few days every two months, and you have to work twice as hard to break even the next few weeks. What if you get sick and miss a couple of weeks? You may as well turn your truck in. 90 cpm is joke money, even when adding in fuel surcharge. The only hope is that you can get a great fuel discount, and don't deadhead much, for your deadhead is usually paid at some ridiculious rate of 65 cpm.

Don't forget to count all the miles you will be running that you won't get paid for because you're on computer miles, not actual miles. Get real busy and run a lot of miles, or team, and you are charged somewhere around 8 cpm because you are putting too many miles on the truck.

The real shame is that these companies have made being a company driver so micro-managed and bad that drivers feel they have no choice but to become lease drivers. Take off a few days, and some companies take your truck away. Try to get home and they keep you on the other side of the country, constant threats of firing, pressure to move to lease every time you go to the main terminal, low pay, ect.

The major players taking new drivers have set this system up for desperate people, knowing most will fail, but they will make money whether you fail or not. If you're lease, and never make over $100.00 per week, they don't care. You've paid all their expenses, they've made a profit off the truck, and you've hauled their freight all week for $100.00. If you run a trucking company, care only about money, and shafting people doesn't bother you, why not push the lease.

One more thing, look at Arrow, and a few other companies that went broke. These companies were collecting lease payments, but not making payments on the truck. Since the L/Ps name was not on the title, and the payments were made to the company instead of the finance company, these people lost their trucks, and all the money put into them. I was reading about one driver that was just a couple of months away from owning his truck, and lost it all.

Think about all of this before diving in. Being smart goes a long way, but many times it's just not enough.

 

These are good, valid points to consider. It might make some run away and not scare others away.

OR....I could call the guy near me here in Michigan again that leases a truck for another company and grossed $363,000 last year. Leasing isn't for everybody and of course, knowledge of the contract and health of and support from the company are absolutely critical factors in the decision making process. I have much to learn and a long time to learn it. Who knows what decision will be made.

All I do know is that leasing sounds pretty good to me for lots of reasons. I also know that it won't be for CRE. I don't like their most recent SMS numbers.

 

It's not what you make, it's what you get to keep. Gross numbers are no good without net numbers, including taxes.

For that amount of gross, the truck must be team, and never stops. Some lease operators make, most don't. I would like to see your friends reciepts and Schedule C to see what he really made.

I'm not saying he didn't do good, but without the whole picture you don't know.

 

I do know the story, have seen what I need to see, and he is net is very, very good. He works hard, drives a LOT, knows how to run a profitable business, does not waste money or time at truck stops, and probably has no life, kind of like me!