Martin and Carolina Hill
Truck: 2010 Freightliner Columbia
Leased to: CRST Van Expedited, crstexpedited.com
Team drivers Martin and Carolina Hill operate this Freightliner Columbia in a lease-purchase arrangement with CRST Van Expedited. Martin also has made news with a federal civil-rights lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety alleging trooper violations of 4th Amendment protections when waking sleeping co-drivers for nothing more than an ID check. Find Hill’s June 2013 letter to Overdrive about the case here.Martin Hill started out teaming as a company driver – “10 days out with one person, 10 days with another, then 10 days off,” he says. He did that for a year before deciding he could do better than 39 cents a mile. He went into a lease-purchase on a 2010 Freightliner that he’s still in today, paying about $1,400 per month in settlement deductions. “Drive one day a week for a month, and that payment is more than covered,” he says, adding that in another six months or so – with a balloon payment of about $5,000 – the truck will be his.
“There’s no comparison being a company driver versus a lease-purchase driver,” he says. “Each load is at least $1 a mile” plus fuel surcharge for a take-home income almost twice what he was making prior, he says. His wife, Carolina, trained and got her CDL, and now the two have made the road their home.
For new operators, he’d recommend CRST for the consistency of schedule and decent terms of the lease-purchase arrangement, particularly with a solid co-driver situation. “It’s a good gig for a new guy who’s never done this,” he says.
The Hills typically run day/night alternating driving schedules, Martin on the day shift and Carolina running nights.
Next in the Teamwork series: Tom and Tina Evans, leased to Load One.
