What has been previously said about getting to know your dispatcher is right on with Knight. There are two big problems with Knight.

1. Lack of empty trailers and they are selling off a huge amount of their older ones. Rumor has it they are trying to get down to 1.5 trailers per truck. They are also buying 14' and double pups (saw one the other day being pulled by a Yellow :? ), so the 13'6" 53' are getting fewer. Be prepared to get good at scavenger hunting.

2. Each terminal does their own dispatching, so there is the always suspected hoarding of good loads. If you are going to travel into the territories of the other terminals then your dispatcher will have to be one that is more aggressive, yet doesn't step on the toes of the other terminal planners. Many times a load doesn't show up in the system until it has actually been loaded and headed down the road. There is also a lot of right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

As for the non-dispatch being forced, we have never had a problem with telling them "no", but we don't work out of the Katy terminal and each terminal rules their own roost.

They are the most disorganized company we have ever worked for, but if you can get past the adjustment period and learn their system you will find that over all Knight is a good company to work for. As a team we had our choices of companies, yet they work for us because they offer great home time, good pay and the option of where we want to run.

 

Thanx for the info all. Just got home yesterday. They assighned me one of the 379 Pete's. Jury is still out as to weather I like it. So far everyone has been reel nice and helpful. They assigned me to Mike's Board and he told me what he expects and I told him what I like and dont like. Mike told me he trys to keep his trucks out of the Northeast but sometimes freight dont agree and he has to send us. Steve seems like a manager that is a real hands on guy. Wants to hear from us on how our disp. is doing. he told us to call his cell if we dont have a preplan 150 miles out of our dest. So far no lies from recruter. I will keep everyone posted.

 

1. Lack of empty trailers and they are selling off a huge amount of their older ones. Rumor has it they are trying to get down to 1.5 trailers per truck. They are also buying 14' and double pups (saw one the other day being pulled by a Yellow ), so the 13'6" 53' are getting fewer. Be prepared to get good at scavenger hunting.


Why the heck are they going back to 14' s ? When I was there they were trimming all the 14's back down to 13'6 or selling them because people kept taking them east and hitting low bridges. WOW still sounds like everything is still the same there.

 

1. Lack of empty trailers and they are selling off a huge amount of their older ones. Rumor has it they are trying to get down to 1.5 trailers per truck. They are also buying 14' and double pups (saw one the other day being pulled by a Yellow ), so the 13'6" 53' are getting fewer. Be prepared to get good at scavenger hunting.


Why the heck are they going back to 14' s ? When I was there they were trimming all the 14's back down to 13'6 or selling them because people kept taking them east and hitting low bridges. WOW still sounds like everything is still the same there.

 

We wondered the same thing. It just doesn't make good business sense to purchase equipment that can only be ran in half of the United States especially when they are eliminating hundreds of the 13'6" trailers. We recently saw one of these new 14' trailers way east of I-35 (the rough cut off for 14' trailers) and it was being loaded for NJ. We told the shipper that it wasn't supposed to be there, told Knight it was being loaded and no one seemed to care. The really scary part is they haven't informed most of their drivers that these trailers exist and how to identify them. There are no markings other than the trailer number starts with "H". If you are behind a Knight east of I-35 that has a trailer number starting with "H" and they are headed for a 13'6" clearing stay way back and enjoy the show!!!!! :lol: :lol:

 

Don't ya love it when the college degree knows more than you do !!

Can't wait to see one stuck in a plant!! :lol: :lol:

 

Heaven help the Knight boy that takes one of those through my old home town there is a bridge that is 13'10 and he will hit it BTW it is the ONLY truck route to the plant that Knight loads out of also. Also he will be hitting a RR bridge when he does hit it also and the RR will be MAD. Since SOP for them is a FULL inspection and this is the busiest Intermodal mainline in the US that will be closed nice job Knight.

 

Sorry it took so long to get back. My laptop has been messing up.
I was gone 17.5 days and run 6300 miles. All legal and no pressure. I did one local was paid 4 hours for about 1.5 hours work and the rest of the time I was on my 10 hr break. I also got 10 hours of detention and 2 extra stops. All scales and tolls have been paid and all lumpers were paid without question. got paid 2 days of layover because of not being able to switch out at terminals or other issues.

Totals

Miles= $2191.70
Stops= $30.00
Det. = $100.00
Local= $48.00
layover= $90.00

Total= $2432.70

Divided by 17.5 days = $138.97 per day
This is not great but not bad considering the times and the freight availibility across the country. Also I never run more than 50 miles extra on any one load and many times run less than I was paid according to my GPS . In other words miles are close to what I do.

 

Trailer numbers starting with 6 or 8 are 13'6, 7 or 9 are 14, plus the H's that you mentioned before. I really don't know why they don't put the trailer hieght on the trailers. I have seen stickers on 14 foot swift trailers that says DO NOT PUT LOADS TO THESE STATES ON THIS TRAILER and has a little map. I don't understand why knight doesn't do this.

 

We'll Smok'inEagle I'm glad thing's are going OK for U over at Knight's. my main problem was I had a misconception with there non-forced dispatch format Anyway :!: