Comments By Davy A.

Perhaps the biggest fear I had when I started, other than backing up til it goes crunch, was the fear of getting in somewhere and not being able to get back out. Especially like truck stops or unplanned stops.

It was so bad that, my trainer would make me stop at random truck stop, the first few days, I would drive for 7 hours straight while he had to really go to bathroom lol.

I ended up obsessively trip planning every detail, using satellite images, streetview, multiple GPS and Atlas. It would take me a month of Sundays to get going and I wouldn't roll unless I was totally comfortable with my route, including stops for fuel and parking, back up alternative routes and alternate stops. I still trip plan today, but it's habitual and done quickly from repeating it so much.

I still have a healthy respect of unknown places, I've had to back out of a few situations buts it's usually a known element.

As was said, freight markets have been catastrophic for several years. The good thing about this is that it makes no difference to you other than you need to fight for your career every second of every day. You won't be efficient enough for a while to even run the loads you do have. This job is so much more complex, nuanced and very counterintuitive than people realize coming into it.

You do this by becoming the highest performing driver that's safe and easy to work with. Most drivers fail to go their first year without at least one incident or accident, if they even make it a year. Strive to be that driver that does it perfectly. It's attainable if you have the right attitude.

Never be late. Be early if you can and on time at a minimum. As soon as you see the thunderstorms of delay and confusion in your forecast, communicate these to your office. Be flexible take whatever loads you get and run them flawlessly. Do it with grace and professionalism.

Be safe, run a tight ship, clean logs, trip plan and execute with precision.

Don't worry about brown nosing and excuses and other superfluous crap, your company will see through it anyway and you will have your hands full just simply trying to survive each day without screwing things up too badly. It's crucial to prioritize and you first years priority is to perform at the highest level you can.

If you can attain a consistently high level of performance, with no safety incidents and accidents and are easy to work with, you will always have high paying work while the bottom and mid ranks fight over the scraps.

Look, the brutal cold hard truth comes down to one sentence we used to say a lot in construction as Gen X: "Figure it out".

Training in this industry is this, sink or swim. It's natural selection. We call it Training, but it's more a natural aptitude test. Either you have the critical logic to make decisions like NOT to back up on a public road or you don't. If you cant figure it out without being told, you're not going to be a suitable driver. It's just the reality of this industry.

Bro...take some personal responsibility or your fail at WE too.

1. It's not "according to him" it's you backed up on a street. Never do that. You could have killed the guy behind you. Good way to recieve a lead diet supplement in many areas of the country.

2. Drop the excuses. We've all been stressed, out of hours, not much experience. Many of us made appropriate choices and didn't have any accidents or incidents.

3. Many other drivers aren't driving your rig. You are. Many other drivers lie like a rug, exaggerate and drive like idiots. You took the turn too fast. I have a hunch that your school specifically told you to take offramp 10 under the posted recommendations, which are for cars.

4. Own your crap, learn how to improve from your mistakes. If you crap in your underwear, don't blame your underwear.

A bunch of us gave you advice on how to get it done

That advice is: Get your experience in OTR first for a year then proceed to go local.

But....then you revealed that due to your parole you can't do OTR. Would have been more helpful to have known that in the beginning.

So basically, you're a convicted felon who can't leave the state or area? No one here is judging you for that, but if you failed to tell us important things like that, it begs the question are you telling your employer?

My best guess is to see if there are any dock to driver programs locally, or agricultural work, and or construction. With so many illegals self deporting, it may free up some spots. Although with your restrictions, it's going to be even tougher in an already tough market.

Yes, I use my atlas for backroads, alternate routes, anytime I have questions on routes.

I'm sorry to hear of your circumstances. My advice off the top of my head would be to apply everywhere you can at companies that offer training. Be prepared that some may want you to start from the ground up. It doesn't sound like you actually hit anything, so if you have no accidents or incidents, you may be able to find something.

It's a tough market out there for even experienced pros with clean records.

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I've been really busy and haven't had time to reply. I really appreciated OS's reply. I may come off as though I'm bashing Knight at times. Rest assured, I'm not.

When I was there, I built relationships that I still have today, and if it were to fit my circumstances, I would return there if I felt like it matched up to my needs and wants. In fact, recently, I had discussed returning as o/o leased on to them with my old TM there. I chose to purchase a house instead, but that's a whole other story.

I enjoyed a solid niche, and like OS, their business structure of having the terminals have so much autonomy benefitted me greatly. Very true that their flatbed division is a potentially much higher earning division as well. I also maintained great relationships with people in corporate as well.

My grievances with their policies are just that, it's policies and systems. There are very little human input on a daily basis that can change them. I really identify with just wanting to make things work. It's a large part of the reason that I stayed as long as I did.

I look at cameras and subjects like this more towards the demographic of drivers as a whole. In general, if we allow it by our actions, individually, it allows the carriers to continue to engage, and allows the insurance companies to dictate it to the carriers. Where as if the drivers continually vacate carriers that use cameras, the carriers will eventually be forced to use insurance companies who don't require them. It takes a long time to accomplish, but eventually it does, it's the beauty of capitalism.

As we always say, there is no perfect company. I think of it as always a give and take. The company I'm now with, fits my operating style and needs and wants very well. I can't stress enough though, that based on my experience with Knight, I would definitely recommend them for an individual coming into this industry. Should they find success, they could make a reasoned decision later if it still worked for them or if they needed to move on.

Yes, I have a subscription to it. I find it invaluable for locating off the wall truck stops and parking. I use it as a secondary gps. My primary is a garmin dezl otr500. New places final and initial mile as well as location satellite and streetview I use google maps for.

Best practices are just that, best practices, they are not necessarily the only way to go, just the ones that have much higher success rates. That's important in this industry where the failure rate for first year drivers is well of 75 percent.

It's great that you found success in a different method, but for most, they need every advantage they can get just to simply stay in this industry.