Going Over the Road with Knight

I am not concerned with Elogs and fully support the coming mandate for Elogs to be in all trucks. Elogs protect you from companies asking you to drive beyond your legal time. I am well versed in swaps/repowers. I set them up all the time with drivers. I don't like doing it and we all know it is a hassle. There are dispatchers out there that will do swaps for reasons like you suggest that are outside of a business decision. I for one only do it to save service or to get guys home. I would hope that my future DM would do what I do and if it is giving one guy the shaft; work with the load planner to help the guy out on his next load.
You are right though. Politics pop up no matter what occupation. But I am committed to this and am excited for August to get here. It is something I have kicked around since I got in trucking on the office side. I figure if I don't do it now I will just keep putting it off and never do it.

 

@surfer
The goal is, once I am on my own making the solo driver pay scale, to average .40 CPM and at least 110,000 miles a year (roughly 2100 miles per week). That would be put me at about 44K gross. That is more than I make now. I plan on getting a few years in with a company like Knight then going somewhere that has better pay. I am fully aware that the pay at Knight is not the greatest but is better than many other places I looked at that meet my other requirements; the pet policy is my limiting factor. At some places the pay at one year of experience was as low as .31 CPM with no additional bonuses for MPG, safety, and such. That is what I call poor pay. I am hoping to gross around 38 - 40K and if I make more, great.

 

I still have Knight in my sights but my final situation has improved slightly. I am thinking I might go ahead and get my CDL on my own with C1 CDL Training. I originally wanted to do it this way in the beginning but didn't have the resources. If I do it this way I would instead sign up with Melton and go flatbed. My long term goal is flatbed anyway and Knight was intended to be my foothold into the industry as a driver.
Melton also has all the things I am looking for; decent pay, a training program (flatbed and securement), PET POLICY, and APUs. My time line is still the end of August with either CDL training beginning the first week of September or beginning with Knight the first week of September. Will see how things pan out.

 

A lot of guys do that and if that is what it takes to get you in as a driver you got to do what you got to do. I am still tossing the two around. Melton does offer tuition reimbursement so that would help me out. Knight is like any big carrier; good and bad, but for someone just starting out it isn't a bad place to begin from the sound of things.

I also thought about using a loan to get my CDL but you legally can't do that. You can't take out a private loan for any kind of post secondary education including tech schools or specialized training programs like CDL training. The government has a monopoly on all educational lending.

 

Melton is talking like my dog will not be allowed now and this would be a deal breaker for me. Their policy is 50lbs and she is 60lbs. I can understand if they say no but come on. She is not a big dog at all and comes to just above my knee in height. If they put their foot down I will be very disappointed and that may push me back to my original plan to go with Knight. Will see. I sent them a follow up email to my phone call with them. I communicate much better via email than phone calls so maybe it will sway them. 10 pounds...cmon.

 

I was thinking that way too. You have to work 90 days first in order to bring a pet on. I was thinking after 90 days of working hard for them paying the deposit and bringing her on. I would hope they wouldn't really throw down over 10 lbs. If good drivers are really so hard to find and retain as they say do you really want to tell guy no because his dog is 10lbs over your limit?