On Board With Knight Transportation, Squire School Started 03/22/21

One more tidbit that comes to mind.

First week pay was 1300.00 take home. I got a bonus for upgrading to solo for 500.oo in that, but only had half my trips in that week. Second week pay was 1200.00 take home, including a 200 bonus for solo upgrade. Third week should be good as well. Ill have Golden CO to Houston Tx, Houston TX to Dallas, Dallas to Waco, Waco to Harrisonville Mo, Harrisonville to Wichita KS and whichever load I get from Wichita out, assuming I deliver by Tues.

Gotta hustle, but I like it.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially when first starting out as a new, solo driver. The important part is to learn from these errors and retain it for later. That's the experience part of the job, "learning by doing". From what I have read, you're ahead of many brand new drivers.

I agree with PackRat. We all make rookie mistakes. A lot of time they are because we put too much pressure on ourselves. Make sure you learn a lesson from each screw up. You are doing really well. Just keep on working at improving your results. It will come. Don't burn yourself out during this first three months. take an intentional break on occasion. Hang in there - you are doing great!

Hecka nice numbers, Davy!!!

Especially for being 'fresh out the gate!' (Hubby's phrase; I read this to him on occasion!)

Congrats, conquer, and keep at it!

~ Anne ~

ps: 'hustle those guns!' ;)

Thank you guys (and gals).

Today was battle royale with the preloaded trailer lol. I got to my receiver this morning, In and out very efficiently, spent 15 minutes there, was really happy, processed my paperwork and documents and headed over to my shipper with a nice clean empty. Got into the shipper clean and efficient dropped my empty, backing wasnt perfect, but safe and in the hole ok. Old guy there, million miler for Knight, helped a little, but he said it looked good. Talked with him for a while, hooked up to my preloaded trailer and commenced to pre trip it...

One bad mud flap, Abs trailer light coming off and on, and two tires that looked like they were from the early 50s maybe, but the biggest thing was, no running lights, marker lights and clearance lights. Tried the usual culprits, tried jumping a hot to the pin, nothing. No love. I suppose I could have just done what everyone else did, haul it to the receiver before I needed to have the lights on, but why risk it and why ruin someone elses day. I called dispatch, let em know, that while I could probably make it before sundown, I didnt think it was ok to do so. They said good thinking, let both the receiver and the shipper for my next load tomorrow know I was going to be late and told me to call breakdown.

Breakdown asked me to take it to our yard for repairs, with the load in it. They will either have me sit on it while it gets repaired or drop it and head to my shipper tomorrow. Ill have to put in for breakdown pay. Ok. Thats where the battle takes off. I pull it out of the hole, park it at the office and get the BOL and paperwork handled. Then tried to adjust the tandems as they were all the way back. They dont move, I use every trick in the book, finally beat the pins into submission kind of, get em to the 40 foot mark or so. I get the clutch hot warning on the truck so have to let that cool down, because Ive been trying to rock the, loose while going back and forth, in and out of the cab several times. I then cant get the tandems to move any more, nor the pins to relock, several rounds of beatings, swearing, tinkering, wd 40 and general reefing on it, gets em locked and enough to drive. Its very hot out and the physical activity has made my sugar plummet. I down my last Gatorade, eat two fig newton bars for a little pick up while Im headed over to the terminal.

I ate a ton of food tonight, far more than I normally do, so Im guessing I really worked some out, grabbed a shower and felt good to get clean, reminded me that I really enjoy physical labor still in some ways, which got me to thinking that after I do dry van for a while, I might try skateboards next. My mind keeps coming back to that idea, so if I start picking your brain on it OS, thats why lol.

Also, as I was pulling out, I had to thread between a light post with a huge mean looking square base and a guy in a day cab hooking up and take the exit ramp out of that section of the yard, It was tight but I knew I had it comfortably, I made it with about 6 inches to spare, it just flowed. I think what my trainer referred to as the Zen of the truck. As I passed by the Day cab, the guy said, watch that post over there, and then Nice job, smooth man.

It felt good to have a few pieces of the puzzle come together, at least in that moment. I also felt like I communicated and handled the issues that came up today well. I spent a few moments of time on each problem reviewing before choosing to take action. I also thought about what OS and PackRat said too, and checked to see if I was repeating mistakes. The only thing I didnt do was send a loaded call, but thats a judgement call because I may not even end up with this load, But Ill check with my DM in the morning.

Send your loaded call. That way you get paid for how many miles you move the load. If they T-call it, you will always get paid for how far you moved it, but only if it show to be loaded on your truck. Your arrival call shows you were on time, but that loaded call needs to be done also.

Send your loaded call. That way you get paid for how many miles you move the load. If they T-call it, you will always get paid for how far you moved it, but only if it show to be loaded on your truck. Your arrival call shows you were on time, but that loaded call needs to be done also.

Makes sense, I sent it first thing this morning. Trailer is in the shop being worked. Tractor as well. Bad fuse, but wasnt root cause. Also had a flat drive tire this morning and a couple other little things. Glad its in there. I have a message into my DM , Ill question him about how I go about getting breakdown pay on this.

Ditch that WD-40 for spraying on rusty pins. PB Blaster is thicker and works much better.

Ditch that WD-40 for spraying on rusty pins. PB Blaster is thicker and works much better.

will do.

Couple days go by and I forget where I have been and which load I was on.

Took the trailer to the Knight KC yard, turns out it was 4 miles away from the shipper. Got paid to have a nice shower, relax and the terminal for a night, restocked my truck groceries with Instacart delivery. They fixed the trailer. I woke up to a flat drive tire, they replaced that, and replaced my pigtail that I had mauled. I kept the load and dropped it in Wichita that day. A little bit of frustration there, two different people working receiving at the store, 1rst one told me to hook up to the trailer in door 1 for my empty, so I did, the dock light was still red so I went in and asked the other clerk about it. She said it was full and to grab the empty on the side of the building. Ok. no problem was all I said. Unhooked, then grabbed the actual empty and left.

Went up to the Rubbermaid DC in Winfield KS next, for a load to Lowes DC in North Vernon IN. Good miles, very fun route. I took US 160, 169, 161 for a lot of, very fun two lane roads. By the time I got to the Rubbermaid DC, it was already getting late in the day, I had their old building for the address, clerk there got me over to the new facility. It took a few hours to get me loaded. I had 2:21 left on my 14 hour. They offer overnight parking, but it was mostly full and was a zoo there. I decided to head out, I knew Id be on US166 for a bit, very rural with nothing in the way of truck parking and stops, but plenty of abandoned stores and parking lots. I could have played it safe and bullied my way into a spot there, but I gambled a bit. I ended up pulling into a small town that had a Walmart, a truck stop with 5 spots, all taken and a community college with a gigantic empty parking lot. I chose the college. I woke up early just in case kids showed up, not wanting to get boxed in. I was fine though. Headed out in the AM as soon as my 10 was done. Ive really grown to hate the 14 hour clock on days that I have both a shipper and receiver together. Especially when its live load, unloads and dealing with trailer issues. Those things are out of my control and they just kill my clock.

Getting recaps now, so I can keep rolling. Finished up the drive to the Lowes DC. I got my next load, supposed to be from Louisville KY to southern FL. Good miles, Im happy with that. As I get close to the DC, a second preplan shows up, preloaded out of the DC to Tulsa OK. Still good miles, but not as good. My DM calls me to confirm, he said someone dropped the ball on the Tulsa Load, so he needs me to take it since Im at the DC already. I said sure, No problem. (The guy is handing me as many miles as I can do each week and very easy to deal with).

I dropped my Rubbermaid load, got the Lowes preload, and get out the door. Trailer is heavy and feels weird to me. BOL states 35k. Feels like something is off. I get to the nearest CAT scale. My 5th wheel has been almost all the way forward since I got the truck, Its been bugging me, but I hadnt changed it yet because I was unsure. I was 11400, 22500 on the drives and 34600 on the tandems with them about 2 feet back from the 40' mark. I moved the 5th wheel back 3 holes for 1500 lbs, reweighed and then put the tandems about 6 holes back. gave me 11200, 25000 and 32000 roughly. I figured that will work, its legal and It took me a long time to get the pins to unlock and lock. I was hot, tired and wanting to get the load moved ahead more. I needed to have it 8 hours or under travel time tomorrow to get the receiver on time (4:00 pm cutoff) and I had to start my 10 off no later than 10:00 pm. I also spent a while doing back to back messages and paperwork for arriving at the receiver and then for starting the new load. Oh yes, and this time I was able to get the trailer lights that were not working (different trailer than the previous malfunctioning one) fixed myself.

Struggled to find a place to shut down, all rest stops and truck stops were full. Finally found a flying J with a few oddball spots, grabbed one, quick ugly 45 sight side with a couple goofy pull ups later I shut it down for the night, 1 hour left on my 14, 1.25 on my 10 hr.

Yesterdays totals: 8 3/4 hours driving 514 miles Todays totals 9 3/4 hours driving, 479 miles.

This weeks check 1306.00 take home, all trip miles, and 75 breakdown pay. Starting the next pay cycle with 1351 miles already on it as soon as I finish the load Im on tomorrow because the way the trips fall into the pay cycles.