What do you make at Knight?

Ah, To be young and naive. Full of dreams of what should be. Then BAM!! Reality hits you right between the eyes. Facts are as follows. You are not going to get that kind of money. With 3 yrs experience if you get $500 a week you should be happy. When you have been at a company for awhile (like 2-3 years) you can get $700-900 a week. But fact is you are not going to see that kind of money with 3 yrs experience working for anybody who will also give you good benefits.

 

If you have a family that actually WANTS YOU HOME, then I reccomend staying where you are!
If I recall, Knight describes themselves as a "medium to short haul carrier", not the long haul company you are thinking of. Sure Knight has frieght to LA and back, the problem is you will get 3-5 short hauls until you complain long and hard enough so they will throw you a bone to shut you up for awhile.
During my time there the week before I went home was sucky as was the 1st week back on the road. IF I WAS LUCKY, I could get 2 good weeks (3000+ miles) a month! I was consistently in the top 10 producers from the columbus terminal b/c I only went home ONCE A MONTH OR LESS!!! Let me tell you, IT WASNT WORTH THE SACRIFICE!!! Your family would rather have you home and the Knight family COULDNT CARE LESS IF YOU LIVED OR DIED, let alone got home to see the wife and kids!

 

up until swift starved me out mostly due to being experienced and absolutely refusing to sign on to become an "owner"-operator, i was cracking the $800 mark on a consistent basis. i had some weeks where i took home more than $1200 after taxes. whenever i substituted for a driver on the walmart account out of casa grande, az, i easily took home $1400 after taxes. i loved doing those reefer runs. for that dedicated account, i was on the waiting list for nearly 2 1/2yrs. the last time i had checked in, i was bumped from the 205th spot to just under 90.

i tried, tried, tried, and tried some more about getting something, anything that was local within the phoenix area. arizona's economy is completely jacked up. i couldn't find anything. i even applied to work as a #### janitor. so, after 2 months of being unemployed, i took a gig with knight. it was either that or have the bank take back my house and car. i couldn't have that.

anyway, yeah, i dunno how people can honestly be happy they're making peanuts. i guess, for those people, it's either the mobile jail cell or a cardboard house underneath a freeway overpass, or it could be that they've worked the worst paying jobs, and never saw a check for more than $150. it's easy for them to be happy they're making $450 per week, or less.

 

I have a $1000 dollar a week OTR job. It's a small company with 60 trucks. We run and run hard and we have to do it legal so it gets kind of tight sometimes. The downside is getting home Saturday morning and leaving early Monday morning but a night or two at home during the week is nice.

You won't make a grand at week at Knight, no flippin way ! $500 to $700 maybe but the next week will be terrible as it all "evens out"

Go F urself Knightstein Transportation !

 

I worked at Swift for 1 week (orientation and 1/2 day at Walmart Casa Grande) before taking the alternate offer at Knight many years ago! I only hired on with Swift to do the Casa Grande Walmart Grocery runs---was told 5 days on with 2 days off, which in fact was 5 1/2 days on and 1 1/2 days off with NO weekends off! Plus I lived in Tucson (1 hr away) and had to be around Casa Grande on call if needed (worked out great for those drivers who lived in CG!). Pay was on the low-end, trucks were old Internationals, and most runs were multi-stop, 3-section reefer runs, where the driver had to continuously reconfigure the sections and also had to stand by the door when unloading at each stop pulling stickers off of the pallets (no sleeping while unloading!). I saw the operation, met the Swift staff at CG and left for home never to return ---went to Knight orientation the next week for Express (5-7 days out/3-4 days home)...

 

I've taken home over a grand a couple of times with Knight, but between the "loss" miles and other "stuff" it was hard as hell and burned up my log book.

My ave gross isn't even $750

 

Oh gee O's/O what are you saying? That great little company isn't so great? The miles really aren't there? Say it isn't soOr could it be like thousands of other little companies it's about to go under. Lets see after CSA 2010 gets in to full swing how many little companies are still running those kind of numbers. Besides I'll take $700 a week + Full benefits over $1000 a week and no benefits any day.