Left CRST

They were great. We got to the terminal Thursday, and my flight out was not until Friday, so my FM kept me on the clock so I cold stay in the truck overnight, and not have to get a motel. He and a couple of other management people I talked too, all told me that if my new gig did not work out, I had a place at CRST. I told them why I was leaving, that going solo would be best for me, as I did not rest well in the moving truck. There was nothing but good will and best wishes. I have orientation set up with Werner for this coming Wed, in Lakeland FL. I also have some other leads, including a good one I got hanging out in the airport in Cedar Rapids, waiting for my flight back to Florida. It pays to talk and network, and I am amazed how, with my 9 months experience, with safe miles, and no tickets, gets people interested in me. It pays to be professional, give notice, and treat your company with respect.

A couple of people have PMd me from here, and I promise i will catch up with you this weekend to answer questions about CRST. I can tell you here, they sent me to school, and asked me to work for them for 8 months to pay for that school. I did what they asked, and they did everything they said they would, and they kept me working. I had a great fleet manager , who really helped me as a newbie, to get me working and get me paid. If you go to some of the other trucking forums, you are going to see people posting that CRST is the evil empire. Well, it is just like Brett and others have said here, those drivers whining in those forums are the ones who cant get along with co drivers, turn down loads, are not safe and cautious. If you are looking for a company school and a chance to get your CDL , and you want to work, CRST can and will get you out there. In my 9 months, I have driven close to 100,000 miles. They just gave a 3 cents a mile raise for their new students, and at 6 months, you get a raise to 32 cents a mile. If you have hazmat , you get an additional .04 a mile for those loads. And they have started a performance bonus system based on total miles in 90 days. It is tiered to how many miles you run and even at lower miles, you can earn a bonus. We were on track to get the top one, which would have been around 1500 dollars. My co driver, who stayed on with them, will probably still get that.

CRST is a great place, and if they had a way for me to go solo, I would have stayed with them.

Glad to hear you and CRST had a good working relationship. Doesn't CRST have a flatbed division that is solo? Or am I making that up? lol.

There is CRST Expidited which is dry van and reefer , (the reefer is new and not very big), and CRST Malone, which is flatbed. Malone is only O/O or lease. It is a separate company, but still under the umbrella, if that makes sense. Right now, I will not go lease at all, though...... I have offers. I did not mention it in my other posts, but Transam Trucking, which is also lease, has been trying to get me to sign on. Lot of promises and big pressure, but I do not have the experience running a truck to even think about it at this point. My trainer at CRSt was a lease operator, and just recently leased a second truck and hired drivers to run it, and also offered me a spot at 40 cents a mile if i wanted it, along with me becoming a partner with him, leasing my own, then leasing others and being a small fleet owner within CRST. Well...... I am not ready and I do not know if I ever will be. Brett here cautions against leasing, and you have to be very careful. I have met some Malone drivers who are doing very well, and talked with them, and EVERY one of them told me, if I want to do that, first work a company truck as if you are an o/o, keep up with all loads, miles, fuel and expenses. I plan to do that, then I will make a decision on that. There are a handful of other tucking companies out there that have a lease based program that takes off the top, and pays you as a percentage of the total line haul. Sammons is one, and I have heard that Shnieder gives that as an option. That prevents you from being in the negative paycheck realm. John Christnor also has a lease program tha is supposed to be based on miles, so you dont pay if you sit. If I had 10,000 in the bank, I would try Malone flat bed with their lease, but....... I dont have that.

I am looking to get experience under my belt. I could have stayed at CRST, and perhaps should have, but....... the driving without rest in the team environment is a problem. I did it to fill out the contract. I am a man of my word, and I made it work. The reason I decided to go to Werner is their sign on bonus, 5000 paid over 2 years. That works out to about 500 dollars every 90 days. A 1000 one time at a year. I am giving up hazmat , which at CRST, I would now be paid .04 more a mile for. I dont care, because to me, hauling hazmat is not worth the trouble. Every time I have been pulled in for a spot inspection, it has been because I had placards on the truck. Getting the endorsement is not hard, but then you find there are a million rules that your studying for the endorsement did not prepare you for and just having that placard makes you a target for DOT. That plus we dealt with some companies that would try and slide stuff through. They would not get the ticket if we were stopped so they did not care. I will even name names. Conway! Three times, they gave us loads, that if we had not been vigilant, we would have been in violation. My co driver got a ticket for running lights being out on a trailer one day in Ohio. The officer pulled him off the road because he had placards and wanted to do a level one. We had pretripped it, and all the lights worked. This was early in the morning, and the officer could not see that the running lights he cited us for were working. We stopped at a Petro 40 miles down the road, got out of the sun, and all those lights worked. Mow my co driver has that on his CSA points, for a BS thing that was not true. He is appealing it, and has documentation from the repair shop that the lights worked, but, it is a shot in the dark to get the points off. The bottom line is, it was the HAZMAT that made us a target.

On the flip side, i was pulled in one night in OK for a level 1 because I was pulling a placered load, passed and got a 25 dollar bonus. We since had level 1s we passed in Utah and WA, and both times were with HAZMAT.

Hey good luck to you in your new adventure. And Brett is correct the truckers that wine all the time are the ones that have 8 jobs in 8 years. Job hoppers. Any company for the most part are not bad, it is all about attitude. Driving is attitude, getting along with others is attitude. It all about attitude and how one approaches things. That's with any company. You have learn a valuable lesson that the key to getting good loads and good pay is the relationship you build between you and a dispatcher. That my friend makes all the difference in the world. I remember when I drove for Gainey, after about 1 year I keep getting these what they call emergency loads. Example was like a impossible job. Picking a load out of southern GA and having it in Bangor ME in 2 days. They always paid an extra $ 300.00 on top of the pay. But the key was I was getting these load more often sometime 3 and 4 time a month. My dispatcher said he loved it because every time there was a load like this there planner would come to him because he knew he had a driver he could count on. So it did not take much time to know that I was reliable. With that in mind I always had a load waiting before I unload the the load I was on. That my friend is what make you the money. And this would apply to any trucking company, your good attitude and the give and take is what separates you from the boys. Remember if your wheels ain't rolling your doe any comin.

Knight also has a lakeland terminal and there are several here from a bunch of other companies. I also went to CRST first and left pretty fast. I personally think it was best for me. Lots of miles over here but they also only keep the best drivers.