Just Got The Hammer From C R England

Welp, Been working under C R England for 4+ years now, no accidents, not even a backing accident. (Special thanks to my retired Army drill sergeant I had as my trainer. Great guy and set me straight when I started out)

Wake up for my scheduled load tonight (working dedicated for Target out of VA). Get a call letting me know I've been terminated. Turns out I let my safety score get too high for too long (they recently changed the short-following-distance automatic alert to report a longer distance than before, didn't adjust my driving well enough for it). Lesson learned, moving forward on the double. Applying for a lot of driver positions wherever they may be.

Wish me luck! If you've got any pointers, lemme know.

You could apply to JS Helwig, the company I drive for. If you do, tell ‘em Bruce referred you. They are hiring and the pay is decent.

Sorry about the termination. Seems unfair and nit-picky.

You could apply to JS Helwig, the company I drive for. If you do, tell ‘em Bruce referred you. They are hiring and the pay is decent.

Sorry about the termination. Seems unfair and nit-picky.

Thanks! They're one of the companies I'd sent an application to, but they said they'll call me tomorrow morning. I'll be sure to let them know you referred me!

I'm finishing up with packing my stuff from my current (former now I guess) truck. Going to see about getting some rest after the call tomorrow and then driving back home.

Wish me luck! If you've got any pointers, lemme know.

Best of luck!

You've been out there for four years, so you know how things work at this point. You'll land another gig soon enough and be right back at it. Just apply like crazy everywhere you can, and someone will be happy to have you.

How did you like it over there at CR England? Historically, their pay has always been well below the industry standard, but their equipment has always been great, and they have tons of freight. Were they a pretty good outfit to work for?

Ouch! Very sorry to hear that. Just curious...did they ever give you any verbal or written warnings prior to your termination? Also, do CRE trucks have a camera or radar that beeps at you when you are following too closely?

Wish me luck! If you've got any pointers, lemme know.

Best of luck!

You've been out there for four years, so you know how things work at this point. You'll land another gig soon enough and be right back at it. Just apply like crazy everywhere you can, and someone will be happy to have you.

How did you like it over there at CR England? Historically, their pay has always been well below the industry standard, but their equipment has always been great, and they have tons of freight. Were they a pretty good outfit to work for?

They were pretty good to work for once I got a dedicated position at Target. The only thing I think some people would have an issue with is not being home very often or for very long (I was fine with it, only going home every 5-6 months for about 3-4 days). They were pretty flexible with getting your truck into the shop, and always had a loaner on stand-by for you to use. The only two issues I had were having to drive through the North-East (Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, etc), and the shop itself not seeming to know their own systems (Freightliner dealership shop not knowing what PasSmart is)

Ouch! Very sorry to hear that. Just curious...did they ever give you any verbal or written warnings prior to your termination? Also, do CRE trucks have a camera or radar that beeps at you when you are following too closely?

The only thing I got was a "coaching period" where you have to not get any new critical events for the following month. (Which I always made sure of whenever I got one), it was just unfortunate timing with the new following distance allowance. The truck does beep, yes. But it beeps wayyyy far back, and the original setting for the following distance to be too short was about 2 seconds according to the truck's radar. But when they implemented the new system, the truck's radar was the same (alerting me to the same distance as before), but the new setting was right when the system beeped at the driver, and you had to immediately back off to get it to go away without getting dinged for it. Unfortunately, I didn't adjust my driving enough in time. Despite not getting any new critical events on this last coaching period, safety dept. decided to give me the boot anyways.

It's funny though, because my dispatch office and driver manager absolutely loved me since I was always on time and had no accidents/incidents. She just called me today and talked with me, saying she'd be more than happy to be a good reference for wherever I apply to next.

Story sounds like one a friend at my company who is a trainer told me. He had a kid who had great character and work ethic and he had a couple very minor preventables but was let go due to being "too high a risk" for the company. IMO, its a forecast of probably another weak year for freight, since the logical conclusion with your story and his is probablt:

1) Freight may likely be slow in 2024 and carriers do NOT want to take any risks to lose what little profit margin will be there and mitigate losses by retaining drivers that are more likely to have an accident based on data based driving behaviors via Netradyne or other driver monitoring AI cameras.

2) With the freight being slow, they don't want to lose their top performing drivers (not just mileage and on time service but SAFETY record) so they that don't want to thin those drivers workloads by divvying up loads to higher risk drivers and losing their top drivers as when they are kept busy week in week out they are more immune to being recruited by other carriers.

SUGGESTION: Any good carrier will want you to elaborate on why you were terminated and more importantly why you will be different working at that carrier.

Tell them something to the effect that you need to adjust your driving habits as it your goal to be a reliable and performing driver and you realize carriers will only retain safe drivers in the current freight market and you will be one of them. Most importantly your goal will be to be a good steward of the road and it starts with doing everything in your power to ensure the safety of the motoring public (even the F**king Prius and Subaru drivers) J/K don't say what is in parentheses. ;-)

You get the idea, there's a spot for you somewhere just aim to take ownership and what your plan is to be better. You will land somewhere. Praying for a new opportunity for you man! Best of success moving forward.