Who's The Worst Of Them ALL to work for?

I have been driving for 37 years and driving tractor-trailers for 16 years and i do not care what you think you read somewhere. Anyone who thinks they will get better fuel mileage at a higher speed does not understand basic physics and mechanics. People who think driving faster is safer, have the same sort of reasoning problems. If you read something somewhere it doesn't make it true, because it may have been written by a rookie like yourself who does not know what he is talking about. I have driven fast and slow trucks and know what I am talking about. The governed speed of the truck you are driving has nothing to do with how much money you make. The rate of pay and length of haul are the main factors in determining pay.

 

Yeah, it does. But the reason they put it on our credit was for the $86.00, that's eighty six dollars and zero cents, and for 7 years and it was paid out of hubby's last paycheck from them.

Was that question asked before or after you signed the contract? If someone knew to ask this question then you can thank the person/s who got burned and spread this gem through word of mouth.

We had good credit until hubby's time with CRE.

He leased on to CRE and we spent 6 months trying to make this work. My hubby is no slacker, he runs hard and works hard besides. They gave him just enough miles most of the time for him to pay the truck expenses (lease pymt, fuel, etc). There were weeks, at a time, where we saw absolutely no money at home. The expenses to operate that truck don't stop because you didn't get dispatched enough miles to cover your costs AND pay your own bills. So each week he'd be trying to play catch up but it gets hard when you start out the next week in the negative. I was borrowing money from family to get by and pay bills, but family could only do so much.

I went with hubby on what ended up being his last run for them. I spent two weeks in the truck with him and saw his frustration with the company first hand. We seriously discussed his options and finally decided that we couldn't keep living like this and he turned the truck back in at the SLC terminal. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of that truck in the terminal parking and listened to hubby line himself up with his next job which was IDC.

I kind of got the impression hubby was the wrong religion in regard to CRE. Mormons are great at taking care of their own, not so much for outsiders though. On his second to last check, they took out $700.00 for detailing the truck that was only 6 months old. The truck was still like brand new, only surface dirt, no dings on the body, nothing broken inside the tractor. All it needed was a wipe down with a mild cleaner and they took seven hundred out of his check. It took them almost a year to pay him for his last load. We're smarter and wiser for this lesson.

I don't know about other lease operators that got burned, I just know about us.

You've stated that you don't have a house or family, so maybe this will work out fine for you. If it does I'm glad because you will be a rarity and more power to you. Take care out there and stay safe.

 

WhaT?!!
Not again!
I thought froggy weather was over.

Askin' the right questions is good, but only half of the assignment.
Rememberin' the answer(s) is the other half.
Especially the important Q's & A's.

Easy come, ....... Easy go?
When y'all ain't got nuthin', y'all got nuthin' to lose?
Nuthin' ain't worth nuthin', ........ but it's free?
What's another blemish?

By golly!
That's the spirit.
As Alfred E. Newman says, "What? Me worry?
Gotta admire that attitude.

Play your cards wrong and you might be the subject of one of those stories that you just wanna hear, that we hear too often.

Are you sayin' we should disregard what we're about to read?

I'm all ears, Gondofini.
Go ahead and explain "basic physics" so I can understand why I got better fuel mileage drivin' a 425 hp mechanical Cat with a 9-speed runnin' the legal speed limits (55 to 75 mph) than I did with a 315 hp and 9-speed running no faster than the 55 mph allowed by the company. Actually, about 1 1/2 mpg better, on average. Did I violate the laws of physics?

I see.
So runnin' a million incident free miles while runnin' the legal speed limits, and sometimes a tad over the limit, indicates some "sort of reasoning problem"?
I assume you have a link to some credible research to back up that claim? Call me a skeptic, or an avid reader, --- either way, I'd like to read that report.

Yet you'd have us believe you?
How do we know you know what you're talkin' about?
So far, I'm not convinced.

Who, besides you, agrees with that assessment?
I've driven slow Big trucks and triple digit Big trucks, and I haven't arrived at the same conclusion(s) that you seem to have.
How is that possible?

WoaH!
Hold on thar!
Stop that truck, driver.
How do you figure?

If a Big truck truck driver can run the legal speed limits, wouldn't that driver be able to run farther in a 10 hour period than the driver in a castrated Big truck on an exact same dispatch from point A to point B?

And if they're both paid the same per mile, which driver is capable of running more miles? More miles = more money, right?
For a driver in a castrated Big truck to make the same amount, wouldn't they have to run longer to go the same distance?
One driver may take 2 1/2 days while the slower driver takes 3 days to go the same distance. When they both reach 70 hours of driving, who's check would be larger?

I think what you're spreadin' would make flowers grow.
But not my confidence that you know what you're talkin' 'bout.
Perhaps you could enlighten me and/or indicate where I've erred.
If I'm wrong, I wanna know.
Wouldn't you want to know if you were wrong?
Or just insist that you're correct based only on what you say?

"If you read something somewhere it doesn't make it true."
Who said that?
I forget.
Memory, second thing to go
doncha know.

 

Yeah, because the few times I have in the past, you guys act like you dont believe me so again, whats the flippin' point???

I could fill up an entire page with my information AGAIN and you still wouldnt take it for what its worth.

Even though Id love to be able to drive faster than 62, I'm in agreeance with you that going faster does consume more fuel. You have increased wind resistance, higher rpms, more road friction and just the plain and simple fact that yer makin your engine work harder to go faster.

But I also agree that going that slow does make a road hazard when everybody else is doing the speed limit especially through places like Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. Hell, to my knowledge, thats mainly the reason why Illinois, Indiana and Ohio raised their speedlimits to 65 was so that all traffic has the option to go the same speed.

Hmmm.....

Well, I plan on ridin this lease out to the end, so we'll just plan on not letting that happen.

We asked the question before.

You need to ask a whole bunch of questions. Read through the contract. Dont be like some of these other people and dive right into the pool without knowing how deep it is.

Sounds to me like he had a crappy DM. If so, why didnt he try to get a new one?? We dont have that problem with ours. Even if we get stuck with a solo load, he's always asking us for ETA's to drop yards so we can drop and get a new load.

But then again, its not very easy to lease one of these trucks by yourself. Is there any particular reason you didnt team with him? You have to run your but off to make it work. Before you go jumpin to conclusions, Im not sayin your husband wasnt workin hard enough.

Another "but then again", I had to drive our lease truck by my self for 5 weeks because my wife had to take medical hometime and I still averaged about 2600 miles a week with one of those weeks at almost
3100. <---- That check was 800 bucks takehome pay for one week.

What options did you discuss?? Again, things are telling me you shoulda pursued a new DM.

So uh, you think one of the main problems his lease deal went arye was because he wasnt Mormon???
My wife and I arent Mormon and we're makin money. I know another solo leaser thats makin money and he's not mormon. I cant believe Ive heard this a few times that you have to be Mormon to succeed as a L/O with England. Thats preposterous.

So, did they say what all that 700 bucks was used for? Maybe you shoulda took pictures inside and out before you turned it in so just incase they said this, this and this need to be fixed.

On the last part about takin a year to get his last paycheck, did he turn his trip pack in in a timely manner? Just curious.

Who knows, maybe it is, maybe it isnt. But I will say this.....

When we keep our miles up, I make about the same i was makin workin as a compressor mechanic in the oilfield at 15 bucks an hour with OT and my wife makes a whole lot more than she did workin at Home Depot for 11 bucks an hour.

Even with that income, we were still able to rent a house, pay for all the usual utilities, have two car payments, cell phone payment with two smart phones and an air card and a consolidated credit card payment of 450 a month.

The only thing different now is minus the house rent payment.

 

Apparently, not.!! "Some" people have a good way of makin it happen!

Well, I'm gettin pretty good practice at keepin it fresh in my mind if ya know what I mean.

Hopefully, there wont be another blemish. I plan on doin the job I signed on for.

And I do plan toplay my cards right. If I do what I said i would do when I signed the contract, I think things will be just fine regardless what "most" of you think.

 

My hubby planned on the very same thing you are talking about. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball. You are assuming that you have control over what they do.......you don't. I'm just saying...

Who are you asking the questions to? A recruiter? Do you know how to tell when a recruiter is lying to you? His lips are moving. This works the same for those in the business of leasing you a truck, they lie, because if they didn't lie, you wouldn't lease from them. Now if they were willing to let you take the contract home so an attorney could look it over, or just let you and your wife look it over at home, they might just be on the up and up.

What makes you think he didn't change DM's? For that matter they lure you into a lease so you can be your own boss, so why do lease operators have to have someone managing them anyway? Being your own boss would imply some autonomy of the lease operator's part, wouldn't it?

WE? You didn't say you were team lease operators before. I'm curious, how many miles do you average in a month? How much cpm does CRE ding you for excess miles? Five cents, ten cents per mile, or what? I'm assuming that as you are in a lease there is a maximium amount of miles you can put on the rig in a month before they start charging you for the excess miles? How many miles is the max? 11,000-12,000?

Which is the way they want to run teams. So you're team driving? Much different than being a solo driver, since the truck is usually running almost 24/7, because if it isn't you aren't making much money.

I didn't get the impression you were implying he wasn't. I had a little one at home, so no, I couldn't be driving with him. Husband and wife team can make some good money, but two individuals drawing from the same pay per mile for two different households is worse than running solo, unless you run at least 6,500+miles per week. With two drivers #$0.90 cpm= $0.45 cpm for the individuals (if you are splitting 50/50 that is). Out of that 0.45 cpm you will have to set aside money to pay your quarterly taxes. FYI, you are paying for ALL of your SS/Medicare yourself (CRE is sitting pretty in this type scenario) and this is mostly what the self-employment tax consists of. CRE gets out of paying your worker's comp, paying a portion of your SS/Medicare and they don't have to pay any unemployment insurance for you either. They smile all the way to the bank. But since you have no mortgage or rent to pay you should be in a better position than someone who has a household to take care of.

Do you think they will give you back what you've paid into your maintenance reserve once your lease is up? Trust me they will find a charge or repair to take every last dime of your maintenance reserve. The good thing is you didn't have to come up with a down payment. All this you've paid into during the lease, you will not get back, unless maybe you lease another truck from them. I hope you can come back at the end of your lease and tell me I'm all wrong. I truly do.

Like I said, out of the 800 bucks you took home, you will have to set aside a percentage of that for taxes. When hubby was a l/o for another carrier, he averaged 3,000 to 3,200 miles a week and his take home was anywhere between 1,200 to 1,500 a week, but we still had to take into consideration the taxes.

His only option was to either continue to run shoddy miles or cut his losses. I don't remember if he requested another DM or not. With CRE, hubby was definitely an indentured servant. All I know is he wasn't getting the miles needed to sustain the truck expenses and keep us alive and paying our bills. Our good credit was in the crapper by this time and no hope of getting out of it anytime soon. He ran under the lease for six months. We figured if he wasn't bringing home any consistent pay he could do no worse working for someone else. At the end of the year we took a loss on this venture, and we learned some very valuable lessons.

I think I said "maybe".

I never said you weren't. How much you are making remains debatable.

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Maybe if you've heard this, it could be a little more than just a rumor, you think?

Now as for you and your wife, you both generate the income to one household so you have an advantage over a solo driver or a team operating with two households. Try being a solo lease operator and make money. For all you know this l/o you know runs illegal to make money, this is something my hubby won't do for anyone and he's made it very clear to all involved that he won't. Or maybe the guy is a trainer? They usually get better miles.

This is all rather a moot point at this stage of the game. I chalk it up to having learned a lesson. The $700 was listed as "detailing". Nothing more and nothing less. This was for cleaning the truck, that is what detailing is. No repairs, no replacement parts, just detailing. I was in that truck for two weeks before we turned it back in and there was nothing but a mild wiping down needed. I did cleaning myself when I was in the truck, so it was in excellent shape when he turned the keys in.

Yes, he did. It dawned on us that they didn't have his last trip on his last paycheck (I think it was tax time when we noticed) and he called them and they sent him the check minus the $86.00 they claimed we owed them.

I'm very glad for you and your wife. Just make sure to pay your quarterly taxes and you will be fine. But be prepared for an occasional snag.

Like I said, I'm glad for both of you. Use the money that you would have spent on rent and set it aside for the taxes. Pretend you still don't have it to spend.

I wish you both the best and I will look forward to you telling me I was wrong about everything. Take care and stay safe out there.

 

I bet "most" of us think we hope you succeed.

It's just that after hearing so many failure stories start out sounding the same as your's at first, some of us are skeptical.
But I sincerely hope you make this turn out well.
I doubt your success would change my opinion of the company you chose though. Unless they chose to make some drastic changes.

May your miles be many on the road
And you're paid every penny that you're owed.

 

Please explain to me how the governed speed has nothing to do with your paycheck???

 

That's a loaded or trick question made to make those who think a cut back truck is making money! Speed x MPH x 11 hours = ______

Question: If Jack and Jill leave the same shipper with the exact load weighing the same loaded the same and they scale out with the same weights on all 5 alxes at the same time going to the same receiver. Jill drives at 65 MPH on Interstate 70 and Jack drives at 58 MPH on the same highway following the same route who will cover 675 miles first.

Neither one stops for a 30 minute safety break. Both trucks get the same fuel miledge because Jill knows how to buy and spec out a truck and has the ECM set to good fuel saving specs qith no set top end, but Jack is in a fleece truck that some moron company buys like bulk cowpatties and doesn't really understand transmissions, tires and wheels or rear ends or how cutting back a truck is not a cost savings move except on the cost of their insurance rates.

What will the difference in hours be between arrival times? Who will have more driving time the next day and who would have made more money on the first day if they both are getting bent with 1980's insulting pay in 2010 of say $.27 CPM?

Off the bat I'd say Jill in both cases but I'll let you cut back O/O's (thats a lie as L/P's are not O/O's by a long shot!) do this simple 3rd grade math test!

 

Soooo, which is it, life's fault or England's fault? I'm a little confused.

We may not have the full power of a true IC or O/O, but we have way more control than a company driver.

Oh no, we didnt ask hardly anything from some artarded recruiter. The only thing we got from them was the bus ticket up there. I know alot of people even whine about that, but think about it. How many other new jobs are gonna fork over their own money to get you to there facility??

We never took the contract to a lawyer even though we probly should have, but like i said, we didnt.

Lastly, we got our questions answered from the people who leased us our truck. Not England and some recruiter.

Because you never stated whether or not you tried different DM's.

When you lease, your DM isnt necessarily your boss. You DM is there to dispatch you your loads. He/she is your primary means of contact. When he's not there, then your main "go to" person is either weekend DM's or afterhours.

Sorry, I thought I mentioned it a few times among this thread, but if you missed it, thats Ok.

Yes, my wife and I team-drive this truck. Not for money reasons so to speak, mainly because we have no kids and we'd rather spend time together.

I guess you could say we average about 16000 to 18000 a month depending on how hard we have to run.

But there is no maximum amount of miles you can put on these trucks. Atleast we havent seen anything like that. We've had our truck since December and we have over a hundred grand on the odometer. Things keep goin the way they are, we'll have over a half a million miles on this truck when the lease is up.

By the way, who told you there was a cap on monthly miles?? Please dont tell me it was a recruiter.

A buddy of mile was told by a recruiter that he had to team in order to lease a truck. Again, stop listening to recruiters.

Yes, we run team, and even though your hubby ran by himself for 6 months, I ran solo for over a month and I still made money so even though its harder than hell, its not impossible. Those DM's bonuses are based off how many miles each truck in their particular fleet run so its in their best intentions to keep each truck running. If you get one thats slackin, you get rid of him and find another. Or, you be like probly every other "statistic" and just turn your truck in.

OK, just wanted to make sure you were aware of that.

So what yer saying is, they make up bogus reasons to drain your maintenance fund.....

I have a hard time believeing that.

Well, I intend on taking pictures inside and out of this tractor when i turn it in and if they God forbid wanna pull that, then we're gonna have a few things to talk about.

I'll say it again. That 800 bucks i earned by my self after that 3100 mile week runnin solo was my take-home pay. In other words, thats what went into my checking account after everything was deducted including the tax reserve fund and even our downtime fund.

I can certainly understand cuttin losses if no revenue was being brought in, but it just doesnt sound like a new DM was discussed. Like I said, our DM keeps us busy, even when I was solo.

But then again, I dont know your whole story so i cant properly make opinions.

You did say maybe thats why I chuckled a bit when i read that part about because he wasnt Mormon is why he didnt make it.

Ive only heard it mentioned, like twice. Even if I heard it mentioned a hundred times, I would still shake my head in awe. You know how people are, most tend to jump on the bandwagon where most of the people are whether they believe in their beliefs or not.

As far as our income, we bring home roughly a grand to 1500 bucks a week when we force ourselves to run hard. And once more, thats after everything possible is deducted from our gross, weekly income.

Um, I thought I did say that I did basically lease solo for over a month. It may not be like some of these others that do it for the whole lease, but I still made money in that short period i did roll solo.

I know this guy and I know he doesnt run illegal. As a matter of fact, its kinda hard to run illegal when you use paperless logs. I dont think your hubby had to use them when he leased because they only made EOBR's mandatory at England at the first of this year.

Yes, he is a trainer, but he hasnt had a whole lot of students. Since England cut their company drivers down to like 250, they havent had as many students comin in like they did when we went to school over a year ago. He tried hirin a second seat but he couldnt afford to pay him what the other driver wanted so now, after sellin his car that was costin him almost 800 bucks a month, he's doin fine.

I dont know what else to say towards this quote other than I just have a hard time believing they drained his maint fund just to detail the truck.

There was no list of parts that had to be replaced? Did they allow you to watch as a mechanic went over the truck with a fine-toothed comb?
But then again, I wasnt there, so I dont know enough to comment.

Did you call them and say WTF chuck?? What did they say the reason was for waiting so long? Maybe you should have gotten legal advice.

I appreciate it. Its nice to have a decent conversation on here on this subject for a change and if i came off a little rattled, I apologize. I know your past situation with your lease deal is none of my business but I just wanna know some of the stories because even though things are still going good even after 7 months of leasing, it still gives me things to look out for and think about in the future.

We have a pretty healthy amount that we opted for to go into our tax reserve and downtime fund for that reason.

I highly doubt that. You may be the only one that feels that at this point.

I dont blame you or anybody else for thinkin that because of all the horror stories on here but as Ive said before, you cant honestly tell me that each and every bad lease deal was entirely the company's fault.

We're still goin strong after almost 7 months leasin so I still dont forsee anything goin bad as long as we continue to do the job we said we'd do.

I respect that. Although I still dont understand your feelings. Has you leased with them before or are you just going on statistical numbers?

10-4, good buddy!