KNIGHT-mare

If you're only making $400 a week you're doing something wrong. That's only 1300 miles, not including the other random things you might get paid for, extra stops, etc.

 

Ask your DM what's going on. He'll blame the economy or bring up the fact you requested a day off last month. Yet their pumping new students out in droves. Meanwhile you wait a day for a load, a day for somebody to PM your truck....

 

I had my first 30 day review with the company after working for 200 days (a couple of months ago). Whatever genius pulled my record up decided to randomly review one of my worst months: No accidents or incidents, and I only ran for 8,500 miles during a slow month. I was asked why were my miles low for the months by the dispatcher. I had to remind him that I took 5 days off after being out for 2 months.

What's today? Sep 17th. I've only been home about 4-6 times; I can't remember specifically. So far during my experiences being out on the road, I've personally witnessed that between all of the hours spent working and being away from family, friends, and decent people to talk to verses the pay for the work done does not balance out well.

To rephrase that, the pay does not add up for your time and sacrifice. I never expected to get rich while driving, but I also never expected the pay driving heavy equipment cross-country with a commercial driving license in this "land of opportunity" to be so low.

And for those of you who have different viewpoints (by default), how do you justify the low pay after logging 70 hours or more per week? And for those of you who automatically give the same "at least you have a job" retort, how is it anyone else's fault that those people can't obtain jobs for whatever reason?

I'm grateful for what I do have, but at the same time all I ask is to not be cheated at the end of every day. And those knives in my back are starting to hurt.

 

Statikuz, just FYI, you work for the best DM with Knight. You do know they fly him around to train other people right?

 

Statikuz, just FYI, you work for the best DM with Knight. You do know they fly him around to train other people right?

Seriously? They don't fly any dispatchers anywhere to "train" other people. Training is done by the terminals fleet manager and other dispatchers in that terminal. The only thing those cheap SOB's pay for a plane ticket is to send their recruiters out to college job fairs to prey on the latest crop of jobless graduates. I don't know if you've noticed but I drive by one of the largest terminals 2x a week, bobtail section always full, sale truck lot keeps getting bigger, trailer section filled with bobtails, etc...Knight just doesn't have the freight and it doesn't cost them anything to sideline/curb a driver. It actually helps at tax time, if they can show a loss. All I can really suggest is once you have a year, preferably two, go find a smaller company that hauls specialty freight. I run # 2500 miles a week, take home $750, get home 2-3 times a week w/ at least one over night, run a nice late model large car w/ the 70" sleeper. I don't really like being home, so this doesn't quite work for me though.

 

Not quite true, they do fly this guy out to other terminals. No BS.

 

Ya'll drive for a different Knight than I do, that's all I can figure out.

Off this evening, but only because I put my foot down, and said to my DM that it was time for a break. Got the "Well, take these two more runs, and then you can reset" spiel. (Not complaining about running hard, I'm OK with that, but when I need time off, I need time off.)

In the last 10 days, I had one really nice long run (2000 miles plus), and a bunch of shorter ones, some under 200 miles total, but of course they pay much better per mile. Had to drive 60 miles out of my way for one empty (but was paid for it), and have been bumping up against my 70 for the last 4 days (hence the time off). Total for the 10 days is a little over 4000 miles. That won't go into the "Trucker's Hall of Fame", for sure, but in today's environment, that's not bad. And that's with one reset besides the one I am doing today.

And those short runs? Paid between 38.5 and 40 cents a mile. I know that's not great, I know I would like more, but still, they were just drop and hooks, so, other than the area (SE PA and DE), not bad.

 

Umm.....no. Same trucks and policies the last that I checked.

As far as longer runs, they're all out west. But most of the freight markets are okay as long as you have a decent dispatcher that maintains good relations with the planners and keeps you running. Then you'll never hear those "freight is slow" boldfaced lies.

 

Hey tracy, you do know why they wanted you at that banquet right? To make the co look good! You know #### well knight sux as a co, most drivers that have worked there will agree with me on that! Nothing against you...im sure you can score another job anywhere you would want to go. But my experience with knight just flat out dissapointed the hell out of me.