Why I left C.R.England

Aside from their poor safety ratings (they had to turn off their transponders), and the joke they call training, and their predatory leasing program...
I repossessed trucks for them while I 'paid my dues' for 2 years so I could get with a decent company. As you can imagine, taking another mans truck can get one into some hairy situations. But only once did I ever get scared; and it was not by the people you would expect.

Here's the story.
My main job was to fly into town with the truck key, take a taxi to the truck and simply drive off. Then I ran freight for a few days 'till I got to a terminal to turn it in. Then I flew out to get another truck. C.R.England had about 100 of us and we were kept reasonably busy.

One day, I took posession of a truck in some Wal Mart parking lot in Pa. They never tell us why the truck was left behind; and most time we don't need to know and never find out. But this time, I opened the door to find a half empty, half gallon bottle of vodka sitting on the floor between the seats. Yup, most likely a DUI situation.

Since I have the time, I start rooting around the back to make room for my stuff when I come across a cigar box and some tall statuette. Hmmmm??? Sure enough, the top of the statuete has all kinds of tobacco stains on it. The cigar box has all the stuff one needs to make 'blunts' - including the pot and some green powdery stuff that I really don't want to identify. (really, I don't know what it was and I really don't care). It all went to the nearest garbage can. But the find prompted a phone call to my dispatch.

I told them what I found and where it went. Amazingly, the guy in their safety dept. wanted me to transport it all to their terminal so they could "identify it". Whoa! What? You want me to do what??? Are you nuts??? I refused, of course. But then I got curious. So I asked them, "if the drug dogs come sniffing around, who's gonna post bail"?

His response floored me. He said "we'll have to get back to you on that".

You know, I've taken trucks parked in front of peoples houses - even when one knew I was coming and told the company he was waiting for me with a shotgun. None of that ever bothered me. (he never saw me, btw). I've handled confrontations and never got scared and never had a problem I couldn't handle. But their response scared the hell out of me. My own company was gonna just leave me twisting in the wind. Thank God I only had a couple more months to go before I had my two years in and could leave. As it was, I inquired about once a week for the next 2 months and they never did give me a straight answer.

I am now a regular company driver for a regular company that I kinda like.
My suggestion: don't repo trucks for C.R.England.

 

Oh, I could give you all kinds of stories. I've read the qualcomm messages left behind in those trucks. I've seen the 'winners' they hire, and what they do to drivers. I figure about 80% of those truck repos are just bad or lazy drivers. But that leaves the other 20% the company's fault.

It's kinda funny; in a sad, sordid way. They must discourage their drivers from reading the lease before signing it. I've read more than one lease that pegged the APR at over 20%. I had to do a doubletake on one that clearly listed the APR at 24% on a two year lease. And I've read a bunch of contracts that I couldn't find the APR listed anywhere. There's no way those guys were gonna survive. That's just plain rape.