C.R.England's focal point is on the monetary gain of it's trainers. After 30 days, you can become a phase 1 trainer, get a student out of one of their school's, and truck down the road with the trainer and trainee having no more that 30 to 60 days experienced, combined. Unsafe at any speed. Especially when you consider that our families share the same roads with these two drivers. In addition, after they bus you in with 45 to 75 of your closest trucking buddies, and they do this weekly, they immediately let you know, that as a driver that leases a truck with them you are at much better odds than just a company driver. The load priorities are obtained by the lessors, teams, independent contractors, owner operators, not in that order, and at the bottom of the list is the lowly company driver. It is kind of like being at the Stalig 13 concentration camp during the second world war. You are dictated too, you can't refuse a load, you cannot decide where you want to truck, for instance in the 11 western, and you are told that you have the lowest rung on the ladder as far as load assignments are concerned. And you are also told, "But if you lease, ahhh, then you get miles and a decent paycheck, and if you are a company driver you do not."
They bussed me in, knowing my preferneces was "company driving", and driving in the 11 western, so I could be on this half of the world should something at home need my presence. What a waste of resources. Most things at home could be fixed in an afternoon, a few hours in most cases, but no. Their idea is to have me go to school for 2 weeks, for no pay, then head to the East coast with a trianer for a month, leaving me without being home for 6 weeks now, and with this pittance called trainee pay that adds up to $400.00 per week before taxes. Let me break it down further. The "trainer" sleeps, while I take on the load of the responsibility, drive 7 days a week like a dog, showering sometimes once in 6 days, or sooner, receiving daily pay of $63.00, while the trainer gets the lions share of the money. If the trainer has leased his truck, he is paid $.90 cents a mile, and pays me $.12 per mile, but that is not available to me until I let England keep me out for an additionl 30 days. It could be 10 weeks before I see home. But Englands objective has been met. They advertised their trainer would make money. He did. They wanted to move their freight for the cheapest and fastest way possible. That was achieved. They prostituted the trainee for 10 weeks, made him work under the stress of not being approved by the trainer for future employment with the trucking company, took the trainee's efforts and made money for everyone else but the trainee and his family, and them told him the sad facts. No truck. This actually happened.
Why did this happen? Because the driver never leased a truck from them. How about this? One of the England's, who is in his nineties, will lease you a passenger car or truck. Yes, they are right there on site at the main terminal, and you can lease a car, by the week of course, so you can drive home. However, when you quit, you have to buy the car outright. If you leave with the car, they sick the law on you. So you can literally hand over your financial life to England, lease a tractor trailer from them, lease your passenger car from them so you have wheels, and it will all be there on your settlement each week, what's left of it. They even have a lease company called Horizon right there on the premisies to lease you that rig. A quick walk down the hall will get you that car you've been eyeing. But beware. When someone makes a huge financial investment available to you easliy, literally with a stroke of a pen, that should make you back up. Having a shiny truck is one thing, being a successful truck owner and trucking in the trucking industry is something completely different, especially in these fickle economic times. If that is not apparent to you, it soon will be. I don't know you, but I don't want this to happen to you, or anyone you know. You maybe young, all this might be alright with you. You may have been sold the sizzle instead of the bacon. God knows you are going to need a lot of bacon! Caveat emptor. (Latin for: "Let the buyer beware.") When you need a lot of bacon in the trucking business, you need an awful lot of miles. Jump in your car and drive for 11 hours. Sleep for 5 hours, and do it again. The next day do it again. Do it for 7 days straight. That's how you're going to feel for the next 3 years while you pay off your truck lease. And whatever you do don't get sick. That payment is weekly. Then they are going to assess your equipment at the end of your lease. You will then be offered the price to get it in proper shape to be re-leased to someone else, or you can drive for another year and a half, pay the remaining $45, 000.00, and own it. This actually happened, where the tires and brakes and other odds and ends was $25, 000.00 to the driver. He thought it would be 7 or 8k. He didn't have the 25k. Wait a minute. What happened to all that money he was going to make? In this case he didn't make any money. There was always something that took his money. Of course, he wasn't the "super-trucker" adorned on the walls of the C.R.England terminal, so often referred to by the teaching staff there in West Valley City. He was just an ordinary guy, like you and me.