Knight has a History of 'unrealistic' Driver Policies

I actually enjoyed working there, till they lost a bunch of IKEA lanes and and some of us got bumped off the IKEA fleet. So Cal was easy if you where hauling IKEA, you just deadheaded back over the hill for your next load. Once I got bumped though I quickly realized just how much of a joke the rest of the company was.

 

Yea I heard about the IKEA. Didn't know Knight lost some of their business out of it. There used to be "Ikea" Knight drivers and Knight drivers. I was a Knight driver and that last year was something else. It was in that year Knight somehow managed to run off every possible available "experienced" CDL holder in the United States through word of mouth or first hand experience and started training people that didn't know any better. I would not have believed that so many brain dead idiots could possibly draw a paycheck from the same company unless I had seen it for myself.

 

I loved my IKEA runs! It was always so easy! Sucks they lost it, but they are good at losing great accounts.

 

honestly, until @overdrive mentioned it on my thread, i never ehard anything of a sitting duck policy or anything to that nature.... there are 2 other drivers out of my terminal who i ask about taking their trucks home who live less than 50 miles from the terminal.... they have been doing with no fuss from knight and these are ppl who have been with knight for over 2 years... so i am assuming its all about who cares or not.

 

That cinches it--if, and more likely when, and I will keep trying to get a Ma & Pa outfit to take me on, but unfortuneately I see Knight in my future just as I am sitting at my desk typing this reply. I will demand, in writing, that I not be sent west of the Mississippi or at farthest east of the Rocky Mountain Range.

I know that I may miss St. Louis, Dallas, Kansas City doing this, and I may miss the 75 mph roads in Nebraska. However, I have been on this forum for days researching Knight, and that Fontana Yard and LA is just something I am no longer prepared to tolerate--just as a reader of this forum let alone as a driver trying to find an empty trailer on my 14th hour.

I do not relish NYC or Chitown or Philly, but I suppose I have to 'pick a side', i.e. I cannot just say I want a "Dallas to Indy" run. If the trucks are underpowered, I don't want to climb mountains anyway.

Also, I would then be spread out over only ten or so terminals, about one-third of the twenty-eight or so terminals of Knight according to this web link:

http://www.knighttrans.com/About/operate.html

Less terminals to be throwing this fish (me) into a barrel and shooting at him. The downsides of this strategy are the low bridges in the aforementioned cities, road construction nine-months out of the year, and toll roads a plenty.

Because Knight has a yard near me, allegedly does not force newbies to 'team' drive i.e. the truck must stop for 10 hours nor does not force newbies to fleece/purchase, and allegedly no 'forced dispatch' for drivers, are the reasons why I am still considering them, albeit with great reservation...

 

Correct. This would also happen if I were in Fontana also, right? I read threads by Smaggs and Trucker Dave 1970 and countless others for the past last week---evidently, sitting is likely going to occur similar to Smagas running 24/7/365 by running through his resets for 'favors'.

Yeah, the no forced dispatch does seem to good to be true. I will find out--I am calling the recruiter after lunch and seeing if I can present them a written offer that they cannot refuse.

Well, FYI, I am a former 'white collar' member who would have had plenty of other 'unique replacements' displace me, but as it was, the economy of the past five years is what actually got me--job just went 'poof'. I dunno, if DMs bounce after an average of two weeks, and by the way Knight is spamming the craigslist for drivers, and how Knight wanted Trucker Dave 1970 back even after he gave the middle finger to a customer, maybe Knight would take on a picky guy--its not like they are going to pay me more.

Furthermore, if we assume the company is basically a 'medium haul' type company i.e. as many have stated on TTR (less than 500 miles per average length of haul as I understand it), then my refusals will really only occur when I am say around the Rockies, Sitting there, anything further west I balk.

What is the worse they can do to me, not repair my truck after someone steals my brake knobs or when tires won't pass DOT inspections? Only let me gross $300 for 70 hours of work? Make me hunt for trailers for hours on end for gratis? Ban me from parking overnight at rest-areas or public streets? Pay me mileage for city to same city runs that take all day? Cease paying for my tractor wash? Give me grief for leaving the per diem pay scale? Not paying me detention monies unless the receiver pays Knight said detention monies? Make the Quarterly Bonus unobtainable by cutting miles once a driver gets to close to the target? Put an idle sensor on my truck? Short me pay me miles from what the actual pre-plan miles are? Otherwise Constantly mess up my pay by not reimbursing tolls or other items?

Granted, until I read the Smaggs thread, if they messed up my pay for more than two weeks, I would have bounced--I align with him completely on wanting to get my financial due in a timely manner. I also would have bounced if I got too many sub $500 gross weeks where I took no home time. Thanks to Smaggs, I can now go in expecting 'errors' in my pay and meager compensated weeks with eyes wide open.

If Smaggs only made $18.5k in twelve months of running as hard as Knight would let him, then I am not going to break my back trying to make more--I am older and fatter than he and I am going to turn my phone off on my resets and not perform 'favors' for DMs that will never return one.

I will just look at Knight as a means of not having to pay for a six-month trucking school--that is, I have very little financial expectation. Fortunately, most companies that I would move on to from Knight require 'time--or months' as a measure of experience and not a quota of piecework--or miles.