Best 2nd Company Suggestions

I was with Knight for close to 3.5 years. I'm in the process of switching out, should be completed Tuesday.

They were an excellent choice to start with. I found them to no longer be as good of a fit to my goals at present. It's really important to figure out what you're goals are in the immediate future and decide if the present company meets your goals or they would be better served elsewhere.

In both refer an dry at Knight. If wages are a high priority for you, your probably somewhere around the 50 to 53 cpm mark at one year, with the possibility of 8 cpm in bonuses, however consistently getting all of those bonuses are almost impossible to attain right now, understandable as bad as the market is. So your real wages probably average 53 to 56 cpm. I'm guessing your probably averaging 2500 miles a week or so. This gives you a baseline to see if you can beat that at a different company.

But if flexibility (although it's now being enforced that if you take more than 5 days off at one time you have to clean out your truck at many terminals), longer term benefits such as limited free college tution for you or your family members, or perhaps you want to work at a more relaxed pace, it might benefit you stay there.

Flatbed can pay more, depending on if they will take you. I've done dedicated and local for Knight, unfortunately dry and refer dedicated only pay OTR wages there, so you can expect steady miles but less miles. I went from 3300 miles average a week to 2100 doing Lowes and Sam's dedicated. Local paid a flat rate of 250.00 per day, not enough for me, no bonuses.

Another component to look at is how much the truck set up effects you. For me personally, the governed speed, my wages being tied to the smartdrive system with its subjective standards, and having to contend with the programing set for maximum fuel economy instead of performance became a constant irritant.

It's definitely a decision you shouldn't make lightly. But if you are experiencing what I call growing pains, and you start to notice that your present company isn't aligning with your goals and motivations, rather than trying to force a square peg into a round hole, and possibly damage your career, then consider moving on.

There are a lot of factors to consider, CPM, total miles per week, month and year, 401k rates and matching plus vestments, (it takes 6 years to become vested at Knight, most other places it's 1 year), stock options if applicable, again, at Knight you're eligible for stock at 750,000 miles, you can purchase it at 5 percent off in the meantime.

In this day and age, most companies are offering similar packages, the devil is in the details. But yes, there are companies out there that have significantly higher compensation packages with the same or better miles, many require 2 or more years of experience and impeccable safety records.

You might look at the big dog there in your town. JBS has a plant there in Hyrum.

Here's my take on switching to a second company. I have done this before, and yes, it turned out well for me. I gave my first company all I could. I did well there, but I made sure I was doing the right thing by checking myself constantly. I just don't fall for this stuff that says switching companies is the cure for the problems we face in trucking. It doesn't really matter if it is a matter of more money, or just the old worn out thing about not feeling respected. There are a lot of reasons why people switch companies, but most of the time they can remedy their problems with a little self reflection and effort.

When switching companies I always wanted to make sure it was a big bump in the CPM (cents per mile). There are a lot of reasons for that, and I think it will be obvious by the end of my comments. There is way more to a trucker's pay than just how many cents per mile he gets or how fast his truck will go. So many of us are accustomed to the idea of how much we get paid by the hour, and that simply does not translate over into the trucker's life.

A higher rate of pay doesn't always mean a bigger paycheck. I made it a point when I was switching, that I wasn't going to switch unless it was at least 7 or 8 cents per mile. That was the bar I set. I think it makes sense because usually there are a lot of things drivers can do themselves to increase their pay. I've always maintained that a driver measures out their own pay. This is a concept that is grossly misunderstood in our day, but this is very much a performance based business That means your performance is your measuring cup. You fill it to the level you like.

Think about how Knight pays you. They insist on you being at your peak productivity if you want your maximum pay. That is how their bonus system is set up. It is an incentive forcing you into being a productive, safe, efficient driver. Davy has grown weary of what he considers the system's problems, and he has decided to move on. There are a lot of drivers who can work under the system and come out doing well. That's why there are so many million miler drivers at that company. They don't stay that long out of a sense of obligation. They stay because they like the whole package.

This feels kind of awkward to me. I'm giving you advice on how to switch companies, when you are considering leaving the company that I chose to switch to. Oh well, here it goes. Here's the kind of things I asked myself before I made a switch.

• Am I burning up my 70 without reaching my mileage goals?
• Am I sitting and waiting unnecessarily?
• Am I being proactive in resolving my own conflicts?
• Am I confident I am communicating with dispatch in an effective way?
• Am I being creative with my scheduling and time management?
• Am I consistently productive?

You have done some switching around within the company. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact I like to see a driver trying that. I'll bet each time it had something to do with some of the questions I posed above. We find our productivity waning when there are issues affecting our ability to keep moving. That is primarily what we get paid for - moving freight. When we are waiting unnecessarily that cuts into our efficiency. So many times we can resolve efficiency issues ourselves. To improve our results we often have to learn to be proactive about things like contacting our customers, or learning how to reschedule our delivery times. If you can show me a successful trucker, I will show you a self motivated person. They have learned how to get things done without leaning on their dispatcher or blaming their dispatcher or their company for their problems. Far too many of us give our company way too much credit for our poor performance. Make sure you are not in that camp. A driver who cannot manage themselves into being productive will only have the same issues wherever they go.

One more thing I want to warn you about. This past year has honestly been an anomaly for trucking. If I were a relatively new driver, I would not try to base any career decisions on this past year's performance. It's been a strange bump in the road for our economy, and I am not sure where we are headed from here. If you make a move, do it carefully. My biggest advice is to test yourself and make sure you are doing everything you can to make the current job work for you. If you are confident you have covered everything and made valiant efforts at improving your own performance, then feel free to move in a different direction.

Here's one thing I would recommend you look into. There is a Hydro plant in Spanish Fork, Utah. Hydro is the company I am a dedicated driver to in the flatbed division at Knight. Ask your terminal manager about any openings for a flatbed driver dedicated to that plant. I know Knight hauls loads out of that plant, but I am not sure what terminal handles it. I have been there several times to pick up a backhaul load when I happen to be in that area. They have Knight trailers there, because I have always picked up a pre-loaded trailer. That's why I am confident there is at least a small group of drivers who handle loads from that plant. Just switching to the flatbed division would increase your mileage pay considerably, and you just might find it to be the "secret sauce" you are looking for.

Good luck "Scorched Nuts!" I have every confidence you will figure this all out.

Hey, I just thought of another thing. There is also a Hydro plant in Portland, Oregon. I know there are some Knight drivers dedicated to that plant. I realize that is a long way from you, but it is out west, and they may be able to work something out with you. When I started doing flatbed work out of Delhi, LA they were only hiring drivers who lived near Delhi, but they decided to take me because they had customers in Texas, and that gave them a way to route me home. That same theory might work for you out of that Portland Hydro plant. It is worth looking into anyway.

In reading ypur post again, you may really want to examine the debt free college tution program for your dependant. It's up to 5200 max per year, books and some fees not included, certain institutions only, but others can be reimbursed.

That being said, as OS pointed out, have ypu maxed your earnings potential in your division?

Also, as he pointed out, can your TM resolve your issues? In my case she couldn't, my issues were with corporate policy and compensation and I didn't want her fighting them for me, they're fixed items that a TM can't change.

You stated that it's about the money for you. If that's the case, it's primarily CPM and availability of miles that dictates that. What specifically that means is the quickest means of accumulating the most miles per pay peroids. Other things will suffer in favor of that.

Productivity is defined as the relationship of producing goods or services to labor used to do so. Some things are in conflict with productivity for us as a driver. Fuel efficiency and reduced speeds directly work against us in terms of producing more miles and thus more loads in relationship to our labor spent doing this.

I point this out because if you want to be the most productive you can be, and your highest priority is short to mid term earnings, then picking an environment that focuses on highest miles and highest cpm, per unit pay becomes more of a focus than a pay system that focuses more on fuel efficiency and slower speeds.

None of the above matters if you don't have a solid foundation of safe, on time deliveries and a proven track record of problem solving and self motivation as was said.

KBs 1750 guarantee is based on their OTR package, mandatory 4 to 6 weeks out, 4 days off, 48 state, 70 cpm. Avg miles per week 3000. No bonus structure, standard 401k. A lot of socal runs. Outward facing cams, couple of other items I forget about tbh. There was also some vagueness on the cpm, I spoke with their recruiters a few times over the course of the last year.

I waited almost three and a half years to change, only after I had exhausted all attempts to resolve mounting issues I had and remain in the type of trucking I wanted to continue in. Also, my goals and objectives with trucking slowly evolved as I grew as a driver, and those no longer aligned with the company's goals and objectives.

I can't stress enough, as many have seen me do it in real time here, that if you have issues that go unresolved and you don't make positive changes, you can start to go off the rails and end up in conflict with your company, that conflict can mean rebellion on your part and that can harm your career. Plenty of drivers can and do tank their careers after a couple years of driving by developing bad attitudes borne out of resentments at the company. It doesn't have to happen.