Knight

Best of luck to you, keep us posted on how things are going

 

LOL......I thought this was the "discuss your favorite trucking company" forum!

 

Joe, Really now? 36,000 a year? #### you mean by the end of June i need to just go home and not work for another 6 months? By the end of june i will have grossed about 31,000 - 33,000 driving for knight. I get home 2-4 times a week for my 10 hour break since i do a dedicated run from new jersey to michigan.
Not all of us drivers sit around and complain and this driver here has a family to take care of.

 

thankyou Tallman that refreshing to know. I realize people have opinions of the big companies. After my research I have Knight at the top of a few on my list.

 

Quoted for Truth^

@AZsteve and various Knight shills... Joe's account is 100% accurate based upon my experience with Knight. As far as driver caliber is concerned, I just did my job up until I left. I was brand new like most people who start here. Most new drivers are pretty bad from what I've seen... even new drivers at Schneider, TMC, Roehl, etc. The big difference is training. There is a big difference in competency between someone just out of a mill and a driver with experience. Knight will train you good IF you get a good trainer- I had a great one there, probably one of the best and he had about 5 years of experience. Now there's a lot of bad and impatient trainers as well so its kind of a pot luck thing (also, some people just don't mesh and if that happens you can always request a new trainer)... but I've heard of Swift and Werner trainers with THREE MONTHS of experience teaching newbies and in my experience Knight is nowhere near that reckless. The pay is $600-$700/wk avg. BUT you won't be paid that much on weeks you sit or take time off (some checks are gonna be right around $300)... for this reason ALWAYS schedule your service during home-time (when I left they were doing service every 7,500 miles which is a bit ridiculous). Trainers make more than drivers (usually in the 50-60k range) but they do it through sawing logs since they get paid on the miles a trainee drives and they drive and it's not entirely legal since that is technically team driving.

Here's my experience with Knight:
-You get paid about 15% less than you actually drive.
-The truck is in the shop quite a bit and while its in the shop you aren't making squat.
-Don't expect breakdown pay but Knight will generally cover your repairs.
-Always watch what you say and NEVER report any damage you didn't do since you'll be blamed for it anyways... this company is always looking for ways to blackball people because it is how they keep drivers.
-Schedule home-time with a 10 day notice and remind them daily because they will "forget".
-Prepare to waste a lot of time doing nothing... half the shippers aren't even expecting your truck and dispatchers just kind of throw crap on the wall and pray it sticks... kind of like monkeys at the zoo, except the monkey cages at the zoo are far better maintained than Knight's driver lounge.
-Scale most loads because Knight goes to shippers most sane companies won't touch... you'll see crap like 45,500 lbs on your bills AT LEAST once a week.
-Oh, I almost forgot to mention the retail loads... these are multi-stop short hauls... Knight makes a lot of money on this but you won't.
-Always carry a small jar of vaseline and a towel... you'll need this whenever you visit a weigh station, the shop, Budweiser, or Purina cause you are about to take it right up the butt.

So in closing... prepare to bend over and take it like a champ. That's just how Knight rolls. GLHF!!!

 

I think I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. Here I sit in the Olive Branch yard with a delivery a few miles down the road tomorrow. Picked it up in my hometown last Thursday. Even Knight has the occasional 2k run.

 

Again:$600.00-$750.00 a week. This is the drivers' salary. Period. Comes to about $36,000 a year if you work EVERY week (52 weeks) of the year.
And this doesn't include breakdown time, being held up by a shipper, or home time.
This company and all (and I do mean all) other large, mega carriers are terrible places to work, and the almost 100% driver turnover rate (means that most drivers leave within one year, by their own choice) even in this lousy economy, proves it.
Working up to 100 hours a week for $600.00 - $750.00 (with lots of unpaid down time; meaning NO pay at all) sends away even the most desperate.
Don't work here UNLESS you absolutely need experience only; after which you can move on to something better, as quickly as possible.

 

LOL What is the towel for?

 

To wipe up after you bend over. You don't want that squishy feeling for the next six hours while you drive that 300 mile load to where it delivers tomorrow?

 

Surfer Joe you got it all wrong.
5/10 - 5/17 - $1295
5/3 - 5/9 - $ 1150
4/22 - 5-2 - $1228
most of my weekly averages are around $1200 per week. Now maybe your average is so low because of all the complaining
you do on these Forums? Maybe if you do less complaining and more driving then you can make more. It is all about how much
you put in that you get paid for what you do. Most days i drive 600 miles. do i turn down any loads? Nope because even the small
loads will put me into position to get the bigger loads. Do i sit around the drivers lounge and complain? nope no reason to.