New Drivers at Crete?

Dang, man can you think of any more questions? J/K I think Crete is as good as I've seen. Don't worry about your 2 jobs. Family can ride BUT I don't know if you can take more than 1 rider at a time. Health Ins. isn't bad they have a couple different plans, I have the family BC/BS with a $850 per person $1700 max deductable and it costs $75 a week. I think it's to much but I hear about others paying alot more.
They are VERY picky about logs, NEVER fudge your log! If you go over your hrs man up and admit it, they'll ding you with a negitive safety point and that will fall off in about a year.
Starting pay I'm not sure of but it' better than most and if ya keep your nose clean goes up to about .40cpm at the one year mark.
All trucks have APU's or some other anti idle device . I think I covered everything, good luck

 

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/truckingindustryforum/crete/150459-how-to-get-in-the-door.html

Crete doesn't hire from SAGE. See the thread linked above.

 

I work for Crete(at least for now). They have gone from a company that you'd spend your entire career with then retire, to a stepping stone company. Not a bad place to start with, but they aren't the company they use to be. We just got a message this week that all the '07 trucks will be sold out by October, and these are the only ones that had the diesel fired APU's. They are currently replacing the '09 Prostars...I have heard they are doing it by 400k miles because of some agreement with International. Every other truck either still uses the Opti-idle system or the last few years have the battery pack a/c and heat system. These systems are a pot luck...sometimes you get one that works fine, while others are always in the shop, but most won't last more than 6 or 8 hours if you use any other accessory like a tv or computer. Riders must be family...wife(not common law wife), kids up to 18 yrs old. And unless they have changed, a girlfriend(even if it's a long term relationship are not allowed). They watch you here like a hawk. Logs, idle time (to recharge the batteries when you're on a break, but has been reduced to 1 1/2 hours, which isn't enough time to recharge the 8 batteries that the a/c system uses). They are mostly using the new International Prostars with the International Maxxforce engine. Most of these trucks are unreliable at best. My 1st 50k miles, I was in the shop 5 times for various warranty issues, including having the oil pan replaced because they didn't design the oil pan to withstand the internal engine pressure that the engine builds during jake brake use. Insurance is ok, but I have had issues getting things approved, but when I had the family coverage, my wife and daughter could use it and never had an issue. I now only have my wife and myself on the insurance, and it costs me $75/wk for the premium co-pay. I think the deductibles recently went up, but I think it is in the $1000 per person or $1500 per family area, then it's an 80/20 co-pay if you use a doctor in the PPO network. I'm not sure what the co-pay is outside the network. As for the job-hopping, they are curious as to how many trucking companies you have been with so they can determine your starting wage. Since you're just starting out you would start with a trainer and previous non-trucking employers shouldn't be an issue.(as long as you weren't terminated for something like punching your boss out or doing something illegal...not that I'm saying you did...but that is pretty much the only part of your non-trucking life they are interested in). They only hire from certain driving schools, if you're still interested you may want to check with a Crete recruiter to see if you're school is one of them.

If you want to get a long term idea of what we go through over here, there is a thread on this forum named 'Crete...A Year in review' that has been up and running for a number of years, and is regularly updated by many of us. Although if you want to read the whole thing, it'll take a while. it has something like 600 pages...

 

They use PTDI certified schools, BUT in some cases will hire certain students from non PTDI like me. I did have some experince but hadn't been in a truck for several years. I had some cretians telling me I wouldn't get in but here I am! I didn't do any thing extra so how and why ?? who knows ?

 

Here is the list of Crete approved schools. I went to one on that list that is definitely not PTDI certified. I'm not sure what criteria Crete uses in choosing schools for that list. In fact the owners of the school I went to even said they were surprised that Crete had approved them.