Beware! C.R. England can only be compared to making a deal with the devil. First, the company offers these great figures. Make up to. 50 a mile. They say you can make money within 3 weeks. Drive the best equipment on the road. The pile just gets deeper from there. Its been over 5 years since I turned in my "Dream Truck" but the Nightmare still hasn't ended.
I began my experience with C. R England in July. At that time job prospects were low. You remember why. Newspaper was full of scams. Well these guys spend a lot of money on advertising because they are real hard to miss. They look like a company that's really successful. So how could I go wrong? I had prior experience. Six Years but it had been a few since I drove. I needed retraining because it had been to long. Well as desperate as I was for work I did what I had to. I went through their Driving school.
There is a lot of horror stories about this experience in itself believe me! The training consists of mostly classroom time. For every 5 minutes of trucking theories you recieved you got 30 minutes of company policies and figures based on top earners "the best of the best." How much of that income was recieved by blowing upper Management I will never know. More then half the Students I started with, about 40 didn't make it. Run out the front door by security for many differant reasons. I remember feeling bad for them. But they were the more fortunate ones. They could move on without any contracts. But many of these individuals were bussed in from all over and in dire strates only to be cast out the front door. Many end up at local truck stops looking for a ride home. I passed everything got my CDL and now was waiting for my trainer. About a week later I get a call. Do you mind going over the road with a female trainer? I thought about it for a minute, then replied whatever I just want to get to work. So three days later I get picked up at the local truck stop by this 400 pound person thats sposed to be a woman. Seven years with the company covered in patches, super trucker all that jazz. To be polite I tried to act impressed. I spent 5 weeks on her truck making her lots of money why I got per diem. 110 dollars a week. Stepping out of her truck was like being paroled. Freedom at last! This woman scared the hell out of me. Anybody remember Peewee Hermans Big Adventure? Large Marge ring a bell? Oh she was much worse! She would freak out for no reason. I slept while she drove and vise versa. I remember 3 times being thrown from my bunk because of emergengy braking, her yelling stupid four wheeler. I woke up and opened the curtain one time and picture this; 400 is no exaggeration in weight, her left leg up on the right one, cell phone in left hand on ear sandwich (subway footlong I think, but not following jareds advise) in right hand. Five pounds of pastrami on that sandwich at least. Traveling 65 on freeway weaving back and forth driving with elbows. I think she had trouble deciding whether to put the phone down or the sandwich to pick up the lit cigerette. She was not setting a good example, Was she? Is this what super truckers do? Juggle food, phones and smokes. One time she was in cruise control, standing in middle of truck looking for something in overhead compartment. Truck was all over the road. This was someone that went to all the safety meetings. She had many patches to prove it. I got yelled at for using the jake brake on sisters in wyoming one time because I hadn't been trained to use it yet. I could go on all day and night about Fat Bastards twin sister but I'm moving on.
I just got dropped off at Salt lakes Terminal after 5 weeks with Shamu. I go home and wait for my truck assignment. Break Down 110 dollars a week over 7 days minus food, phone cards coffee and smokes and you still got nothing. I get a key for a truck, has the truck number on it. They send me out looking through hundreds of trucks out back only to find out its parked in Arkansas. No sh*t. Abandoned at a truck stop in F* Arkansas. Well I get a choice wait for a few more days or ride with another driver that would drop me off. I chose to ride. Dumb ass DM routes him through 20 states, 5 differant loads before I end up in Arkansas. About Ten Days. I drove his Truck 40 percent of that time. About a month later I got about a tenth of that money. This truck was left there by someone who was pissed off and abandoned this truck. How clean could it be? Well it started up, no vandalisom at least. But what a mess! Trash everywhere, smelled like hot sick a*s! Well as a company driver driving legal at the max you could make 400 a week minus taxes, cash advances and so on. So after two months of this I realize I'm not making enough to cover child support (800 a month) and myself living on the road. I had borrowed a lot of money from family members up to this point and was far from being able to pay them back at this time. So Being optamistic I try the lease program thinking I can make more. Big mistake! I began running way over dot hours. I was not getting income for up to six weeks because they took so long to process trip packs. So in Febuary the next year after 7 months of this dead end venture I turn the truck back in and head home because I'm worth more as a babysitter for my kids than a truck driver for cr england. However, I had signed an agreement for trucking school tuition. I didnt have 1600 dollars for tuition so I signed an agreement with credit union one a credit union operated by cr england.in the contract it states that if you can complete two years of service with the company the company would pay the tuition. But the loan would be for 5000 at 18% interest. All payments deducted during employment were baloon payments on the interest. So now here it is july. Nearing the 6 years of statute of limitations and I recieve a letter from an attorney demanding 12ooo. Well if I pay that now. That amount would equal 3 times the net income i made during the seven months In which I drove over 80000 miles. What do you think? Does the "Drive Life" for cr england sound good to you? I make over 60000 now driving for a local company.
Tiredofallthebull
Orem, Utah
U.S.A.
0 comments