Pros
The only reason to work as a company driver at CRST is if you just graduated Truck Driving school and want to team drive to learn with support from your co-driver the in's and out's of OTR driving.
Cons
The pay is .22 cents a mile as a brand new driver. Pay increases are too low. You never start hometime ONTIME! Daytime and Nightime Dispatch DONT communicate. You have to fight management to get repair work done. All toll, and scale cost you pay for up front our of your pocket then they reinburse you on your load pay after delivery. The route suggestion they want you to follow will enveribly put you on a US Hwy through cow towns, and sometimes dangerouse routes barely wide enough for a big rig. You almost always have to route yourself a safer route. The lease purchase program is poor. You can purchase a 3yr old truck with over 500k miles for the higher retail price of $59K when it should be wholesale price of $45K tops. You cant choose the truck you want to buy, they tell you the truck your going to buy. You pay .12 cpm for maintenance fee and the money doesn't go into escrow, you dont get it back wether you use it or not. They split the load pay 70/30, but charge you for everything. You shouldn't dare charge fuel on ComData Fuel card for any load. They take the payback out of that settlement, but if you've run another load or two before that settlement is made..the fuel charges for all loads come out of that initial load settlement and do not wait to come out of each load settlements as they are made. This will keep you running in the red! As a lease purchase you must have your own cash to purchase your fuel with, saves you .06 cents a gallon and you wont have to worry about multiple load fuel charges comming out of one load settlement. 98% of CRST equiptment is poor. The trailers are in poor condition, and the dolly legs are rusty, Dolly arm and gears are stripped, the pull bar to slide the tandems are rusty and often you have to rock the truck back and forth while your co-driver pulls hard on the bar to get the pins to release, Most of the time the trailer registration is missing. 99% of the time when you hook to one of their trailers you get an immediate msg that the trailer has been flagged by DOT for tire, break issues! You can spend all of your time taking trailers for repairs and never make any money, or you have to just ignore the warning and hope for the best! Anyone to be a lead driver regardless, and they wont fire you if your out of control. There is no prestige in being a lead driver at CRST. Its NOT a position earned or offered through recognition of excellence! The lead drivers are mostly lease purchase drivers who need a student onboard to roll hard miles. They have afew company drivers who are lead drivers, but for another .06cpm pay hike, who wouldn't go for more money when your only making .31cpm? Truthfully there are far better companies to consider working for before you think about CRST. But if you cant get hired on anywhere else due to having something on your record..then CRST will take you on as a driver. This company is the LAST CHANCE SAM company for those of you who need one!
