Knight Transportation

I know when I was there, I would call my DM and I would ask her what runs that she had and I would usually choose my own for that reason. I didnt like the fact that once you move out of your terminal's coverage, it is up to the new terminal to plan you. You know like when you run out of Indy down to say Charlotte, Then it was Charlotte's responsibility to plan you somewhere else. Unless of course you have a decent DM and they are watching the system for you.
All said though, I actually liked Knight--I always tell people if you want to get home, that is the company to drive for--because they actually go out of the way to get you home. I would still be there, but I had an incident, and was asked to quit. I was already on probation for something that happened before I was hired by them. I am running for an LTL now, but I have nothing bad to say about Knight. They had nice equipment and they actually knew your name and treated you fairly well--and they at least ran freight for mostly fortune 500 companies, so you were not really going to any crapholes anywhere. I wish that they would have had better insurance and I really didnt like the progressive mileage scale, but I could deal with that.

 

Thats what I was going to say... also there is the Patriot truck stop off the south loop in Atlanta about 1 mile from the terminal... ?? Another thing I notice is you said you were getting your time back about 8pm.?? that means you were driving all night ?? You are doing this to yourself. Every morning I wake up at 5 or 6 am and no matter what my hours run out at 8pm.. Always ready to load in the morning and ready to sleep front row at what truck stop ( or nice rest area ) I want. In trucking the earily bird ALWAYS get the worms...

 

The sooner you big company drivers realize one fact, the better you will be. Have you ever worked in a factory? Lots of machines around? Put your name on one. To your dispatchers and driver managers and terminal managers you are nothing more than a piece of equipment. A machine used to move freight. When your cordless drill breaks and your trying to hang a picture you find another way to drill a hole. When one driver can't deliver a load or pick one up in time they find another to do it. That's why they have multiple drivers. Can't be mad you lost a load to someone else. You are nothing more than a production machine. When on your break your essentially a broken machine so they find another machine to do the job. Keep breaking and they weed you out and bring in another one. Conform to their system or find another job. Plain and simple. You're dispatcher doesn't owe you anything.

 

I was in Denver once and HAD to get home. They deadheaded me to Kansas City to pick up a load off the yard going to my home. That was alright in my book.

Far from perfect, Knight is, FAR FAR from it and everyday I get closer to my move out of trucking but they really do work to get me home.

 

I often tell people they are slightly less bad then the other big carriers.

 

Say knight dont bother u on ur break. I was called at 730am by the DM demanding to shut the truck off. Cause it was idling after the batteries went dead and the bunk heater wouldn't work. I was setting n jackson,ga
and got a qualcomm message to shut the truck off. Then they tried to get my empty to the forest park dump. Trust me i new better. At the forest park terminal u r not aloud to idle ur truck unless its hotter the 75. K 75 out sun coming down on a red truck oh come on give me a break. But i said this in one other post this company was a major waste of my time. They want u to run against the dot hours of service. And i can say the whistle has been blown.

 

I was never forced to drive illegal when I drove for them.

As for home time, I always got my days off I needed. I remember once on a Saturday at the 49er truck stop in Sacramento -qualcom beeped - Deadhead home, there is no freight until Monday. I needed that Monday off and they ran me empty 600 miles home (Portland). I cant think of any other carrier that would allow me to do that. However, this was before the HIGH price of diesel soared.

I forgot this thread is for bad carriers so I will add this: I HATED looking for empty trailers. But I made sure I got paid for it. DRive SAfe

 

Ha Ha nice save !

You too James, never let them trick you into giving up your empty. The Atlanta terminal does not like you. Don't take it personally they do not like anyone. They have lied to me more times than my ex and are not very nice people. I have no clue why they are so anti-driver but just wait, you'll see. They'll send you to some dump for a 5 hour live load going to Wal Mart 75 miles down the road in Le Grange. That will be a drop and don't call them asking where to find an empty, that will make your next load even worse.

 

A lady I know who drives for Knight says all the load planning for the west is done out of Phoenix now. the individual terminals supposedly can't hoard loads for their own fleets now.

 

They dh me one Fri from Springfield, MA to Columbus, OH ( some 815 miles) in order to pick a load up from Biglots furniture and bring it back to Indy because there was no freight in MA. Then when I got the trailer back to Indy on Sat afternoon--Mon morn they wanted me to deliver it, 3 stops all tailgated and such--I told them to send a local driver and let him do it--he gets paid for tailgating, I dont. You are right, what other company would do that?
My wheels turned than 1 miles looking for a empty trailer, they paid for it! I remember driving over 200 miles looking for an empty, I got the full 200 miles paid plus $40 looking for it! I really didnt mind looking for the empties, I fiured that whether I was loaded or empty I still got paid. My big problem with Knight was the floating mileage scale. You really had no incentive to do runs much over 600 miles, because you actually wound up paying them if you figure it out.