Knight Transportation - Adventures in a big red truck

Probably the best thing about Knight is it's training program. Yes you go out with a trainer and it's for 6 weeks then you go solo as a squire for 90 days after that before being considered a full fledged Knight driver. So what's so good about the training? They do not run you as a team. For the first week to two weeks you will run as a solo with your trainer. Meaning you do all the driving and he's logged line 4 and setting in the right seat helping you. After that you will still do the bulk of the driving while he right seats you, but he will also drive a couple three hours a day doing a type of super solo. Almost all other training companies will have you running as a team with your trainer after anywhere from 0 hours in the truck to one week of training.

The other upside to Knight for newbies is you'll run 100 percent legal and the equipment is now very well maintain(used to be issues with trailers but the regular service dates have fixed that). This will make it much more likely that you'll survive your first year without a lot of CSA baggage that could hold you back from moving on to something that pays better. Now if your okay with mediocre pay and are more concerned about getting home every week than how much you make you can just stay at Knight because that's what they are good at. Otherwise, collect your year of experience while protecting your DAC, MVR, and CSA violations - then move on to a new higher paying adventure.

 

Delivered my load this morning. Next pick up is tomorrow at 0700 going 560 miles for a 0800 delivery the next morning.

On a more general note. I often hear how much the general public does not respect truckers. Respect is a two way street and if we want it we need to give it. Watched a Steven's driver(contractor division no less) slide in and out of traffic like he was Jason Bourne driving a Mini cooper. I'm amazed he didn't leave any paint on the bumpers of some of the 4 wheeler's he was tailgating. Sad thing was, I passed him TWICE while maintaining an appropriate following distance and just hanging out in my chosen lane.

 

Showed up at my pickup bright and early at 0645. Give the contact number a call at 705 and he told me he won't have anyone to load me till 0930, another hay load. The guy showed up to load me at 0900 and asked where my light cat scale ticket was. What? said nothing about that in the load assignment or directions. So I drive the 30 minutes back to the nearest loves and then 30 minutes back to the load site. Waited another 30 minutes for the dude to show back up. Took 10 minutes to get loaded. Then back to the Love's for a heavy weight. Just to put the cherry on the crap cake I was 1400 over on my drives. Slide the tandems the 4 holes I had and still over by 400. Call the guy and he says he has know way to unload me. Great so I go with my only option left. Reverse till i hit 1700 rpm then slam on the breaks. Yippee it did the trick and my drives and tandems are now 32k each.

It got better after that. Still managed to get in 330 miles for the day and tomorrow after I deliver I have a 1000 mile load to pick up, drop-n-hook and already ready.

 

That's nothing. Before elogs would have ripped out that page in the log book. Rewrote it after getting the load legal and knocked out the whole 562 to the consignee. Oh those where the days.

 

Despite the best efforts by the santa ana winds to make my vertical truck horizontal I delivered my hay load. The high cube trailer, heavy load, high winds and bad traffic conspired to turn my usual high 6 low 7 mpg truck into a low 5 mpg truck on the fill up I did on the way to the yard. Next up is a 1000 miler I can roll on as soon as my truck is out of the shop from getting an A service. I've been promised it will be ready before the shop closes so I grabbed a sleeping room and will get going at 0000 if the truck is ready. Actually if they don't do the A service I'll probably roll on that load anyway.