depends on the safety director. I had a safety director that was one of the best. unfortunately the owner of the company decided that some 33 year old college graduate was better and brought him in. this guy talks down to you. treats you like you dont know what you are talking about. he has a big company attitude that drivers are a dime a dozen and does not care about longevity. but that save the owner money because then they dont have to pay us the higher percentage. the former safety director you could talk to him even when you screwed up and he would treat you with respect and have a conversation with you and then move on

I think you can find both good and bad safety directors in this business. It would help if a safety director had some actual driving experience before putting him in such a position. Sometimes, cutting costs on salaries can cost more on other things in the long run, such as having to replace good drivers.

Originally Posted by PayCheck

I got a call once after 3 hard braking incidents in one night, I was wired up on a qualcom. The safety guy and my dispatcher asks me why and I tell them it's US101 in north CA in the middle of the night and there where a lot of deer. I was told that 3 was just unacceptable and I was going to have to come in for a remedial.

Well ok then your not going to see me have any more hard breaks.

Next week I just set the cruise at 55 and took out 2 dear, tore up the hood. I get a call from the same guy and he asks what happened. I tell him well I could have stopped but that would have created a indecent on my qualcom. Since there was no risk of damage to the public I decided it wasn't worth a remedial..... you can't have it both ways buddy. Needless to say I didn't get any more calls.

I am surprised you were not fired.....if things went exactly as you posted. You admitted you could have avoided the deer but chose not to hard break.......You do work for idiots

Originally Posted by NDBADLANDS

I am surprised you were not fired.....if things went exactly as you posted. You admitted you could have avoided the deer but chose not to hard break.......You do work for idiots

Yep I did work for idiots..... I would have fired me to. Of course I wouldn't have written a guy up for not hitting something either.

You can't hard break 3 times in a night but running over deer is ok. You can't make a U turn or back up on a street when your wonderful directions rout you down an ally with low trees, but if you put a hole in the top of the trailer that's no big deal. You can't take your truck to a shop 4 miles down the road to fix a coolant leak but you can sit on the side of the road for 12 hours and wait for road service in 100 deg heat.

Yep safety first and always. They where so safe I'd bet they had a safety manager for the safety managers.

Heck they where so safe they cut a guy lose with a truck that got his CDL on a single axle day cab and a 28 foot flat bed in 3 days. Gave him 5 days of training with a company guy and somehow he Forest Gumped his way through the drive test, then they sent him to Dallas from LA on his first run. He was so safe I had to park his rig at the truck stop.

Safety managers are great. Apparently an MBA qualifies you to be a traffic reporter, a Meteorologist, and an orical because there is no reason you should ever break your 11 hours. Oh and a game warden to.

I never had issues out of my safety guy when I was otr. Mainly because I flat out told my dispatcher that I refused to run illegally. That made me popular.