Mega-carrier Swift Transportation has been hit with another lawsuit by a former driver who is seeking compensation for injuries she allegedly sustained due to negligence by Swift.
According to court documents, former driver Jessica Baca claims that the suffered “significant and permanent injuries” while she was working for Swift using equipment that she had reported to her dispatcher as having mechanical problems.
In the lawsuit, Baca contends that both Swift and the shipper’s facility where Baca picked up the load failed to inspect and properly maintain the trailer’s equipment. Additionally, Baca claims that Swift was negligent in not providing Baca “safe instructions” after she reported the problems to her dispatcher.
The injury occurred when Baca was using the trailer’s landing gear crank and a malfunction allegedly caused the crank to flip backwards and hit her hands. The injury was so bad that she could no longer work.
This suit follows on the heels of a different lawsuit brought against Swift by a former Owner-Operator in which trucker Herbert Willoughby was injured when his malfunctioning trailer ran over his foot and a jury ordered Swift to pay him $2.6 million. Swift later settled the case, but the full amount of the settlement was not announced.
That accident only can happen when you drivers crank these landing gear down so far to lift the trailer 4inch off the 5th wheel so they don’t have to use the air bags to get from under a trailer,it happens all the time so supit up and learn how to position yourself properly to avoid injuries.
Right on about the air bags. Even in the old days the landing gear should have only been cranked down enough for the tractor to slide easily out from under the trailer. Too much cranking and one runs the risk of overshooting the pin when hooking up..
That kind of injury happens all the time at swift cause the have the customers place the landing gear at a height that is even with the fifth wheel then pull forward with the landing gear on the ground so it jams and the drivers get hurt and they can hire a less experienced driver and pay them less
Reported to her dispatch, how about report it the people that can actually fix the problem, I don’t know like maybe a mechanic, and what does the shipper have to do with trailer, something fishy going on here.
If I’m not mistaken, in contracts with a drop and hook system the shipper is required to monitor and care for the trailer. Not maintain it, I don’t think. But since they loaded and shuttled the trailer around with their own equipment, they’d be at least partially responsible. And since dispatch is every company’s point of contact, they’re the logical first phone call.
That is correct. I drove for Schneider and drop and hook could mean any shippers trailer, not just the trucking company trailers. So the trailer is the shippers/trailer owners problem and contacting the dispatcher is the only method. You don’t just stop at a pep boys and have them fix problems, everything has to come through dispatch.
If I recall from years ago the Driver is the last line of defense. If it isn’t right and a safety issue then don’t pull it. Bottom line the driver is responsible for load and equipment.
That’s easy to say but out in the world not easy to live by. “Look, just get this delivery done then we can route you to a repair facility. If you don’t, then we’ll have to get you a bus ticket because you’re done.”
Who can afford that? And the black mark on the DAC? The bullies have all the power.
Right on the money. “We have to keep you rolling ” is something I’ve heard alot at swift . Even when safety is at question . Hypocritical for a company that preaches safety
There will be no black mark on your dac record. That’s a lie you’re told to scare you into cooperating. Also your employer is legally only allowed to say you worked there. They can’t say anything more. I was a driver and am an employer also. One bit of advice, read your driver handbook. That little book they sell at all the truck stops. It will save you money and a lot of grief!!!
Agreed!!
The driver is responsible, and is the ultimate authority, for the safe transportation of the load. The driver isn’t a mechanic and is not responsible for mechanical failures of the equipment, especially if such can’t be determined through a thorough pre-trip inspection.
The driver is the last line of responsibility. There are plenty of other people who are supposed to be involved in the maintenance, loading, and positioning of that trailer. If it fell to her to determine that the equipment was unsafe, then everyone else before her already failed. She reported the problem to her direct supervisor. If that was the incorrect procedure, then it was his responsibility to direct her to perform the correct procedure – even if she should already have known what it was. That’s his job as her supervisor – to tell her what to do. If he is dissatisfied with her performance, he can take her off the road and out of the truck with any of a variety of retraining, corrective, and/or disciplinary actions, but he can’t claim that it wasn’t his responsibility. Either he’s her supervisor, or he’s not.
Clearly, she did identify a problem, if she felt the need to report it to dispatch, or frankly anyone. Unless that problem developed between the time that the trailer was dropped, and she picked it up (steel-eating termites?), then *someone* else had an opportunity to perform the same inspection that she did, and see the same problem. That someone else also failed. Her supervisor failed, in his reaction to her reporting of a problem. And then, she may also have failed, by following the directions that her supervisor gave her, and doing something that resulted in an injury.
Now, unless this isn’t true – meaning that she is lying – then there is responsibility to go around, here, and *everybody* who screwed up needs to join the party, or they will all continue to pass the buck to the driver, and – at least some – drivers will continue to get hurt. Everyone who thinks that it should be them, stand up again and put all the blame on the driver – because next time, it could indeed just as easily be *you*.
Obviously she didn’t get to pull it as the dolly crank injured her.
Not true, it’s the responsibility of the carrier per csa to keep equipment in proper working order, plus swift driver education fails like most
The shipper in this case refers to swift.
Swift is never a shipper, thy are a carrier. The shipper is the guy that sends the product
I hate to burst everyone’s bubble but you are required to do an inspection on every trailer you touch. So I’m confused why this is anyone’s problem but the drivers!! When you touch a trailer it’s yours !! Period !!
Awesome, Im going to best buys nearest drop lot and touch everyone of their trailers, but seriously the law is meant to protect the small guy against the big guy and the other way around as well, the big guy has deeper pockets so are attractive targets to those who may cater to a devious nature and take advantage of this system but everyone does from the top on down the line, just get used to it, its called democracy, yay!
I’m sure that your carrier would like you to believe that once you touch the trailer, it’s entirely your responsibility, but that’s just not true. You are the *last* line of responsibility, but by no means the only one. The carrier is responsible for properly maintaining their equipment to be safe. If you identify it as unsafe, then they have already failed in their responsibility. If they fail so consistently that you (or someone else) finally has to pull that equipment, anyway, in order to feed your family, then you have both failed, and when you (or someone else) gets hurt, you will *both* be responsible. That’s what she’s alleging – that she identified a problem and was instructed to do something that resulted in her injury. She should have known better than to do something dangerous, but her supervisor should never have instructed her to do something dangerous, to begin with. If he had simply heeded her warning to begin with, no one would have had to make any more bad decisions, and no one would have had to get injured.
The company needs to be held responsible for it’s part. Responsibility does not fall solely on the driver. It merely falls to the driver, *last*.
Dispatch is the first contact?? Try again, they can’t do a thing, you contact road service and then you call dispatch with the info that maintence has given. Then dispatch cab decide what to do with the load. You don’t call maintence for your dispatch, why would you call your dispatch for a repair
You must work at McDonald’s or something because just as it is in the armed services, you follow the chain of command in the trucking industry. You contact your immediate supervisor (your dispatcher) to set the wheels in motion.
Chain of commands, point blank if something is wrong with the trailer you call breakdown.. Duh
That is typical of most large carriers, yes, but if the report goes to your supervisor, your supervisor should tell you to take it to the correct department. It’s his job to make sure that you know and learn the correct procedure, and to correct you when you do something wrong. That’s why supervisors, supervise. If everyone knew and followed correct procedure, all of the time, then supervisors would not be necessary.
Is the dispatcher – or “driver manager”, as they sometimes like to be called – her supervisor, or not?
First of all I don’t get why Cherokee must work at McDonald’s, but anyway you wouldn’t contact your immediate supervisor (generally a fleet manager) about an equipment issue at a large trucking company. You’d contact road call, breakdown, or whatever that department happens to be called. Your FM only wants you to call if you’re going to be late. (If you start calling them every time you get a hangnail, you’re going to start seeing your miles drop and your waiting time on hold rise…FAST!)
I agree. I always called road breakdown first and then my Dispatcher when I was a Werner stooge. First response out of dispatch is always call road breakdown so that’s what I did. There’s “safety instructions” on the gear. This way up. This way down. This sounds like she cranked it the wrong way in the wrong gear and it snapped back and bit her. I somehow doubt anyone could have helped her. The ability to read may have.
No you do not report it to your dispatcher. This is why trucking companies have a maintenance Dept. There is a number you call. Telling your dispatcher about mechanical issues is like telling the dog catcher you need a wedding cake made.
Hey he’s eaten cake so he knows about them right? Lol
True; but I work for a national quick concrete products manufacturer and they are very anal about reporting everything to dispatch even if dispatchers are totally clueless about maintenance issues.
He’s the supervisor, so it’s his job to brief her on correct procedure, and to correct her when she gets it wrong. If reporting it to him was the wrong thing to do, he should have told her the correct thing to do, instead of telling her to do something else.
Maybe the right thing to do was to call maintenance, or road service – maybe it wasn’t. either way, he should have known, and told her. They like to be called “driver managers”, as though they had some kind of authority or superiority. Well, do they, or not? With authority comes responsibility. And superiority in the workplace does not mean treating other people as though they are not worthy to speak to you. It means actually being better than them, at something, and maybe helping them to improve toward your level.
I agree 1000000%. Anything to get money.
Exactly. “Safe instructions”??? It seems to me if you have to give somebody instructions on how to turn a dolly crank you might be dealing with an idiot
I don’t know why anyone would even work for swift in the first place but i do know large carriers like this first call is dispatcher so they can route to truck stop or terminal to get it fixed and let the consignee know you may be late ive never heard of a handle flying back like this either in my 26 years of trucking
I’ve had it happen to me; gear was just high enough and my angle backing under was off a bit so the handle was under pressure.
At a certain point it broke loose and spun upward grazing my chin. If I’d been a little closer probably woulda broken my jaw.
Just shows you can’t let your guard down for an instant.
Sometimes I have one get wedged into the hook pretty tight and are a be*ch to get out of that retainer and can snap out and get you that way, otherwise Im not too sure how she did that either.
It could b flying back if trl is dropped high and she was trying to crack the handle with heavy load
I work for Walmart dedicated account. Our trailers landing gears do it all the time. They flip back towards you without you expecting it. That’s why when If first start cranking, I’m far away from the landing gear. A lot of people have gotten hit in the head all the time by our landing gears and was gushing blood. Its very possible.
The dispatchers are responsible for coordination of such repair, but they don’t do their jobs and leave it to drivers that don’t have the equipment or experience to do the job.
Lol. Maybe if your working in a really small company. I work at CRST and have for years now. Also with a larger company you call the maintenance dept. and they route you to a shop to get whatever repairs you need. It is not the responsibility of the dispatcher to do that. All they will do is tranfer you to the maintenance dept. This seems like a scam so she can get rich off of others.
When a carrier has multiple trailers stored in multiple states on properties where they regular pick up and deliver freight the carrier is still responsible for maintaining maintenance of those trailers. And Swift is notorious for not maintaining where their trailers are and what needs repair. even though they have trailer trac systems some of these track systems don’t have long enough battery life to maintain the systems. anyway as a former driver for swift I can attest to the screwed up equipment that Swift has.
I think before anyone wants to be so judgemental ~ all the Facts should be known. Whether or not on the Level of Experience ~ the real issue is what if Nerve Damage occurred & YOU weren’t able to do what you love so much anymore? What if the injury was so serious it changed your whole Life around… what if you did everything you could & not even the Yard Jockey was able to lift it up because it sat so Low past the tires. Don’t You think after many years of Loyalty your Business Partner if it were “Swift” should have been there for you since Your required to maintain your Tractor shouldn’t THEY be required to maintain their Trailer? Many procedures were taken BUT none followed by Swift. Keep that in mind Ladies & Gentlemen when your out there doing what you LOVE and in a split second your life changes forever. So be Safe on the Road & Enjoy it as long as you can ~ Just Saying…
Swift requires you to report all maintenance issues to the dispatcher the dispatcher will then coordinate repairs.
I learned in training not to let go of a landing gear crank that you had cranked and had significant “spring” pressure built up because of a leg not rising. In fact, if it is that hard to crank, slowly uncrank it till pressure is released. I taught truck driving and always told my students to be aware of this possibility.
I have encountered that very problem with landing gears, and just stopped cranking, backed off and figured out what was wrong. Usually, it was stuck because of pushing the king pin sideways enough to cause the landing gear to jam . she should have known what the potential was for injury, and not continued to crank.
How does a trailer roll over your foot? If it is on the ground, how does it move if you are near the tandems? If it is hooked to the tractor, how does it move unless you forgot to set the brakes? Both situations seem to me to be more driver error or driver stupidity than Swift’s problem.
The trainee was sliding the tandems. The trainer was pulling the handle, which wouldn’t release, and he put his foot in front while pulling, and the brakes did not hold.
Driver error
End of story
No Roy….not driver error. If the equipment worked properly no one would have been out there holding the release handle.
Doesn’t matter if the equipment wasn’t working properly in this case. You still don’t engage in an unsafe act ie. Putting your foot in the path of a wheel and pulling on the handle. In this case you use common sense and call your company.
When I said driver error this is what I meant. NEVER and I said NEVER put any part of you body in front or behind the wheels if the truck is going to be moved. If his foot had not been in front of the wheel it would not had gotten run over.
NO. Bottom line the driver or the trainer should have known no matter the problem you never put your foot in front or behind a tire, that could move. THIS is completely stupid actions. That’s why they work for swift. Swift stands for Student
With
Insufficient
Frigging
Training, end of story.
You don”t put your foot in front of the wheel for any reason.
DRIVER ERROR. THIS IS A OWNER OPERATOR; THE GUYS THAT KNOW IT ALL, hahaha.
Thats why you carry vice grips and teach your student to use them. They were just being lazy lol
The trainer should have know better than to put his foot in front of the tandems when he knows that the driver is going to move the truck. Kind of like pointing a gun at yourself & pulling the trigger because you thought it was unloaded…..
Both issues are driver error. They should know better. Maybe the only company issue is not making sure that their drivers are not properly trained.
Yup as someone else said driver stupidity.
I see drivers trying to move stuck tandem release mechanisms all the time…totally due to non-maintenance but, you still have to keep your foot away from the wheels…LOL…
Swift has many damaged tandem release handles and they know it. Pissed off drivers and former drivers stand on the handles to deliberately bend them. Every driver who gets that trailer after that has to struggle with the handle when he has to move the tandems. Swift has had this problem for years. They know about it. They just don’t fix it.
I agree, it’s the driver’s fault. Unfortunately, there are people out there ‘pretending’ to be truckers when they are simply to stupid and have no business being anywhere around big trucks.
The foot incident was probably trying to slide tandem with 45000 on and brakes that weren’t adjusted right/broken brake spring but still driver stupidity to put your foot in the path of the wheels
Ya’ll comments are the exact reason why the trucking industry sucks. No brotherhood, everyone acts like a donkey’s behind. Just like how the master pitted slaves against each other, so does the trucking industry.
No other industry would PUT up with this behavior. THIS IS A FAULTY EQUIPMENT ISSUE. EMPLOYER’S FAULT!!! CASE CLOSED!!!
Kudos to the commenters who saw this a faulty equipment issue. The trucking industry won’t pull one over on you guys.
Swift? Driver stupidity? Aw c’mon. You cant.be.serious…
Sounds like someone blaming others instead of being responsible for themselves. There are risks involved with anything you do, especially when dealing with large equipment. If someone can’t control a landing gear on a trailer, they need to find a desk job.
Kratz, you weren’t there so don’t presume.
That’s what happens when you hire “steering wheel holders” instead of ACTUAL truck drivers who know what they’re doing!
In reality she cant sue cause that landing gear will do that to anyone, i heard it happen to few drivers. It comes with territory. You cant stand heat you know the rest.
The justice system rewards idiots and punishes producers. Its well past time to start hiring hitmen to just kill these dumb asses. Its cheaper and would rid the world of a lot of problems. I’m betting there was absolutely nothing wrong with the trailer other than “operator error”.
Hiring hitman, do you read what you are writing?
Remove all warning labels and let natural selection do the rest.
Swift doesnt produce anything. They are a monopolistic middleman destroying the lifeblood of trucking. Yes, it is well past time to get the Corporate Hitman in Chief; Bernie Sanders, in Washington to give Swift the corporate death penalty and break up those freight hoarding bullies.
The Government preference is the big corporate trucking companies and not the independent owner operator.
Not where I work you call maintenance, if I call my dispatcher they will say, call maintenance. But I work for a good company that cares for its drivers.
After 38 years of driving, people like Fozzy are why I no longer willing to work in this profession. We had pride and professionalism in the past, now it’s just a sad story of pissed bottles and foul language! It’s an embarrassment to all the old timers.
We should just kill all the workers. Producers don’t need ’em. Then they could all go live in the mountains and trade each other gold for the wonderful things they produce, and live happily ever after.
Of course, the producers would have to actually do all the work themselves this time, but at least all the leeches would be gone!
? ?? ?
Robots will replace humans I’m the workplace.
KILL. That’s an ugly word to use..Be careful of your language. You sound like a bottom feeder yourself.
Common sense is necessary in any situation. Use common sense and stay safe.☺
Screw swift hope the go out of buisness. Only small minds defend swift.
Ok everone sue their carriers. Pathetic,the companies treat employees like dogs, expect 100% and pay them like crap. Then the employee gets hurt and of couse thats what they are looking for, an easy out cause they hate what they do. Its no win. I never met a happy swift driver, they all say the same * its like ever other carrier”. Sad
In my experience, I have seen very few Swift graduates that weren’t complete idiots on the road and off of it. Common sense is not in the hiring criteria for them.
Common sense is a rare thing every where. Not just in trucking but in all aspects of life today. It has been bred out of our genes. You find cops with out common sense, Drivers without common sense. Office people with out common sense.So many companies with customer service that lack common sense. The lack of it is glaringly missing every where. Now if we could only get some people to take a long hard look at themselves. Hhmm. is it possible?
I must agree here. No comon sense because computer does it all now. They sit in a cubicale next to each other and never say a word……EMAIL, it takes longer for a response and yet the right hand has no idea what the left hand is doing
For those of you who haven’t worked at swift let me tell you how F****d up it is over there, they have over 50k trailer and most of those trailers are not well maintained. I see some of you said it’s drive fault, she did her job, plus we don’t know the whole story, she did inform her dispatcher, however what did her dispatcher tell her to do?
It’s the drivers responsibility to inspect and report defects to the shop AND refuse to drive or pull unsafe equipment. Period. But then again our Justice System is full blown retard,.. They will probably award this driver with a 7 figure settlement. Now that I think if it,.. I should Sue Swift for not training their drivers correctly… I’m scared to death to park my truck anywhere near a Swift truck…I should be paid for pain and suffering for the anxiety I face each time I see a Swift Truck on the road.
I got hit in the jaw by a landing gear handle once. Those Pines trailers that Walmart uses are notorious for it. It’s a learning experience.
Usually I side with drivers because I despise what corporations and uncle Sam have done to trucking in the last thirty years and I don’t like working in a fishbowl.
However, the procedure , which is outlined in every orientation I have ever been to , is that mechanical problems must be reported to the shop in a very precise way.
Think of this procedure as a “tag out” . Personnel from the military are acutely aware of what a “tag out ” procedure involves. (Ten thousand lbs of red tape per procedure)
If you report a mechanical situation to dispatch ,they will let you die with it. Most dispatchers get their jollies from ignoring truck drivers that try to report breakdowns to dispatch . If two dispatchers get their jollies at the same time , they go in the back room and have sex with each other.
So let’s imagine the scenario this young lady was working with ,
her electronic log book was getting shorter and shorter,
the receiver wanted the trailer out of the door 5 minutes ago,
the shag driver at the warehouse (if there even was a shag driver) was as useless as teats on a boar.
She backed under the trailer, it was sitting a little high and the trailer was loaded.
She had several choices at this point, pull back out from under the trailer, report to the shipping office and get them to send a shag truck to pick up the trailer so she could wind the dolly legs up enough to relieve the bind on them. Then rehook her tractor. (Burning daylight all the while.)
Or, there was no shag truck and the situation was deteriorating rapidly.
If she did not have the upper body strength to use brute force then most companies would grudgingly hire a road service to help. But you must use the trailer shop division and not the tractor side of the shop. Two different phone numbers two different supervisors.
Let’s say the bottom fell out and nothing I just wrote was relevant.
Now it’s time to unhook from the trailer and either call on your cell phone ,Qualcomm, land-line …internet ,smoke signals….ect, and get the situation sorted out.
What you do not do is injure yourself hooking a trailer because frustration over rides your sense of priority. (There is a more profane way to say that ,but I’m trying to keep this g rated)
I understand what this driver was going thru ,try all that on Christmas Eve some night with the warehouse people breathing fire down your neck ,threatening to lock you behind the gate if you don’t hurry up. (Oh but I wish they would have locked me in the yard, I would have been giddy as a school girl at a dress shop had they done this thing)
Anyway, it is a point of professional pride for me that I don’t involve others in what I am doing until there is actual literal blood in the snow.
So getting back to the young lady with the trailer “malfunction” . She either ignored her training or forgot it, and she wound the trailer dolly up like a propeller on a balsa wood airplane.
It didn’t budge the trailer legs, and she slipped , the handle got away from her a popped her hands with the force of a sledge hammer hitting an ice cream cone.
OUCH! But it was an ouch that was 98% preventable by the driver. Even if it didn’t quite happen that way ,it was still 98% preventable by the driver.
Now I am a tough old b@stard , i can hook trailers and patch and cobble ,booby trap and shoot fire out of my buttons with the best or worst of them , breaking loose a bound trailer don’t scare me none, over the years I have acquired some considerable upper body strength (although as soon as I acquired it I was too old and feeble to be able to make much good use of it) But, I would not expect my level of performance out of a nube. She should have been hot on the Qualcomm and telephone to resolve the situation. Although I believe she has a legitimate injury I don’t think the situation exceeded what was expected of her. Workmans comp. Injury? Absolutely. Multi-million dollar lawsuit? No way. Uh Uh . Not this time. I think she was doing a job she was not truly qualified for. The job application actually asks about upper body strength and there are some physical tasks that are put in place to verify physical capacity.
Maybe Swift violated a hiring standard when they qualified her to drive one of their trucks in the first place? Might be a multi-million dollar law suit from that angle? 😉
TEN FOUR!!!! I really enjoyed reading that. I’ve been locked behind a gate once, too. I cut through & kept on rolling till the cop’s caught up. No worries though. The cop’s said that it’s illegal to imprison a driver on your property. But that I did destroy private property. So I had to replace their pad lock. I enjoy this job.
I had a guard pull his gun on me due to me dumping my loa in thier yard. flat bed and attempting to leave. Broke his finger, gate hit the ground I ran over it. took 5 or 6 Chicago cop cars to find and stop me. I brought charges of kidnapping. That scared lots of people.When all was said and done My truck got fixed and many serious changes were made at the company. I threatened a suit against the ultimate supervisor. THE CEO. Ruined his vacation.
However. Back in the day truckers were a different breed then. We did not just sit and bad mouth someone having issues.We got out of our trucks rain or shine and offered to help them. That is something you don’t see today as most drivers just get on the CB and bad mouth now. Nota ll companies have a good orientation class. but the biggest reason for drivers to have issue sis simple. They don’t read the drivers hand book given to them at orientation. Then wonder what happened?
Hours of service rules and electronic log books put an end truckers trying to help people. We’re not allowed, any more – or to do it, we have to risk censure by our carriers and/or law enforcement for delivering late, violating hours of service, or having to stop in a place that isn’t safe/legal to park in…
Or carry various blocks of wood, let the air out of the suspension and “jack” the trailer so you can dolly up slightly, let the air out, remove blocks, hook up to the trailer, and viola, no more binding, locked up knackered dolly that you can’t change gear. Personally I think it’s the shippers fault for dropping a loaded trailer on a max. extended dolly. They do it all the time.
Well put, and im sure this case happened to most of us at one point in any company .Is swift one of the best companies? No. Are they the worst?No. I have 28 yrs of accident free driving. Drove for swift at one point, did i have a problem with them?? Nothing more then any other company !!!! PAY! Did i get ragged from other company drivers? Yep. But my response was its only paint on the door not what was in the seat!!! Do they as well have good and bad drivers? YES! but to say all are stupid? WRONG!!! and thats very childish.
I bet she could could probably bench press more then you so don’t be so narrow minded in only patting your manly back. None of us may have all the facts – she could of been a very experienced owner operator where the trailer could have been extremely LOW where the Yard Jockey couldn’t even move it because it went below the tires so maybe she was trying to raise it which of course was difficult for any man or woman & maybe she did report it to her dispatcher by it could have been on a weekend where not much is done or phones aren’t being answered & yes a big ouch.. did you ever think Nerve Damage? How would you like not to ever be able to do what you LOVE anymore… so many details left out…. so maybe you should focus all this time you have in writing on maybe Driving instead & delivering your load while you still can. So Be Safe & not so judgemental – just Saying…
How the hell was her head near the crank. Either she is super short or she was sitting Indian style on the ground. What the hell. Get your act together
Hands… not head…
This is why we have physical agility tests. Some people are simply too weak to safely do the tasks that we all often come across smdh
Was she a rookie? Doesn’t matter, any driver out there should have enough sense to get out and look BEFORE they hook a trl especially if they get the fifth wheel under it and its high enough that that the tractor doesn’t squat at all. If it doesn’t squat, trl is too high, and I not talking about the idiots that hook a trl and have to hit it hard to get under it. Trl is at the right height if you can get under it and and have a little resistance, then you stop and all it should take is a littles nudge on the throttle to get under it…..releasing the pressure on the landing gear
Trailer not in spec? Shut down and make them fix it. Don’t touch it.
This is purely the case of one idiot that got herself hurt seeing that another idiot that got himself hurt sue and won a big pay-out. Now she wants her pay-out too.
Don’t make me out to be a Swift fan; they are a horrible company. They open themselves up to enough liability when their idiots hurt others, but that doesn’t make them liable every time an idiot hurts him/herself.
I haveonly got my fingers caught a once. I had cranked up on high speed, and was forcing the crank. Crank on high till it getstight and then go to low speed. Crank may have been to short if she caught her fingers in the back kick.
Why do they not teach new drivers to carry a few pieces of scrap 4×4 to be able to lower the “to high” trl? Simply lower the airbags and place on the frame of the truck and then add air back to the bags. Causing the trl to lift to where you can lower it (raise the landing gear) then again drop the bags, remove the wood and etc. Saves time, money, and prevents accidents. I won’t say that she needed to sue for millions but the company should at least pay for the bills she had at the doctor if they didn’t inform or help resolve the issue. Then they need to show all the drivers how to fix the issue.
Sigh… How many times I’ve had a dispatcher expect me to be able to move out of the tractor I’ve essentially lived in for a year or three, and into a different one, in under an hour… If you carry everything that it would be nice to have, you can’t move in and out in the time that you are given, to do so. You’re lucky if you can get a change of clothing, bedding, your maps, and the ungodly amount of company paperwork and office supplies that you are expected to maintain moved, in an hour. God help you if you have flashlights, batteries, chargers, charging cables, phone, usb devices, crowbars/nail pullers, brooms and dustpans, maybe a computer to help you stay organized, maintain your finances, or pay your bills online, tax records, a GPS device and assorted associated electronics, dunnage, straps and/or load bars… You just can’t have everything on the truck that you need to function effectively, and be able to move at the speed that they demand of you.
So maybe they made her change trucks, that morning, and she could only get what she could get. None of us know. Yes, she could have done a better job of watching out for herself. Her carrier could also have done a better job of maintaining their equipment, so that it wasn’t a risk. The final responsibility falls on her, sure, but when it *always* falls on the driver, and the carrier *never* picks up their responsibility to take care of the trailers, then it becomes a standard practice, and the only way to get the job done is to put yourself in this position, with every trailer. You can’t haul them all in for repair; you’ll never feed your family that way. Sooner or later, you eat all of the responsibility that should have been at least shared, or you get out of the game. And then a noob replaces you, and s/he gets hurt, instead.
Yes, she should have been better at her job. But most of us have had to work for carriers that are all about safety, as long as they aren’t responsible for any part of it – usually at training companies. Tandems and tandem bars are consistently screwed up, rusted, and non-functional the problem is so prevalent that they sell gizmos at truck stops to help drivers overcome it more safely. But we can’t always carry all of the gizmos, and we shouldn’t have to buy them to compensate for carriers that refuse or fail to maintain their trailers. Ultimately, we have no effective recourse to make them do their part, which is why they so often don’t.
Well, this is that recourse. If they have to pay out for fat lawsuits, because someone gets hurt, then they’ll have good reason to maintain the equipment properly. It’s not ideal, and some crooked drivers are going to get fat by ripping off carriers, but it *will* punitively force them to pick up their preventative maintenance responsibilities, once more.
It’s ultimately on the driver, yes. But if it gets down the that point, then everybody else has already failed. I know that a lot of us, here, pride ourselves on our professionalism, but in all honesty, this is a job that you don’t even need a high-school diploma, to do, and the compensation that we get for what is expected of us, these days, doesn’t really attract the top third of the graduating class.
So ask yourself; is it wise to rely upon the driver, not as the last line of responsibility, but as the only line of responsibility? Because that’s how it is going to be, if you let the carriers lay all of the responsibility at the feet of the drivers.
I have been driving OTR for some years. The landing gear crank handle spring back is not unusual on a loaded trailer. It is not a maintenance issue, but a heavy loaded trailer issue. Must have been a rookie driver because if that was the first time the driver had that problem, they have not picked up but a few loaded trailers. It is not the Companies fault, just a dumb driver, that’s all.
In this day and age people are sue happy. How u get hit in hand and permently disabled. She didn’t loose fingers. People need to just stop it. I used to work for swift I hit my knee on a tire can I sue.
I was warned about that kind of issue when I was trained. I have no shame asking for help or just plain letting it sit till road service sends help. I like my hands and arms.
It’s unimaginable to me how a “malfunctioning trailer” runs over a driver’s foot. Sounds a lot more like “malfunctioning driver foot placement” if you ask me.
Same goes for the landing gear. Drivers need to always use landing gear cranks and steering wheels with care, for both can and do sometimes injure hands…I’ve even heard stories about inept drivers being whacked in the head by landing gear crank handles.
A bad tandem pull-bar will sometimes require special handling. Yes, the trainer should have kept his foot out from under the trailer, but shoes and/or feet slip. Mistakes happen. It would simply be unfortunate, and maybe a workman’s comp claim, if malfunctioning tandem pull-bars were a relative rarity, but they’re not. Carriers trim maintenance budgets by not inspecting trailers often enough, or conducting inadequate repairs – bending a bent pull-bar back, is not always adequate, especially if the locking notch is already rusty. Behavior under a load is not always the same as in an empty trailer, either – just because it works when the trailer is empty, does not mean that it will still work when the trailer is loaded.
Carriers do not suffer a penalty for inadequately inspecting/maintaining their equipment – they simply shift the inspection responsibility to the driver, and then perform maintenance reactively, instead of proactively, as is their responsibility to do. I don’t see any other way to shift their share of the responsibility back, than to make them punitively liable for the resulting injuries. You can pull that tandem bar a hundred times, while the other driver moves the truck to pop them loose, without injuring yourself, but the one time that you do… The best answer is still not to have to do it a hundred times. That substantially reduces the risk. Secondary – SECONDARY – to that, would be to find a solution that does not involve risking having your foot slip under the tandems.
When so many of the trailers require this handling, this becomes the standard practice, because the carrier has no incentive to change it, and the driver has nothing but incentive to resolve the issue quickly and get rolling. That is a carrier-made recipe for driver injuries, and they need to be held accountable for their significant part in it.
What your all seeming to forget is its swift. Swift sucks and all there drivers suck. It’s both there faults swift and all the other big carriers needs to be put out of business then trucking will be a whole lot safer.
CDL work requires much in the way of problem solving, called “common sense” by many. The young woman who recently drove her loaded semi over the 6 ton historic bridge and collapsed it is another case in point. Though she had someone with her, she was UN-confident in her ability to back her rig up at night. A TEAM at a local company got a $30,000.00 fine for driving a loaded rig on a 5 ton road because they didnt know how, as a team, to back the rig up at nite and stay on the designated truck route.
There are many “warm bodies” out there with poor problem solving skills. These folks are also poorly taught by “trainers” that are more interested in the extra money than they are by really assessing the new driver and actually training them. My trainer slept about 16 hours a day, and was on his “smart” phone another 7 hours. We spoke to each other, only as necessary. I never learned to use the Qualcomm until I had my own truck and other driver taught me at a drop yard.
To complain to or about the trainer, is to risk losing your first and most important job and gaining, on record, the reputation as a trouble maker.
The trucking industry is its own worst enemy and complicit is, once again, the Federal government.
There’s a reason you don’t put your landing gear all the way to the ground especially if you’re picking up a heavy load. When you back under it the feet raise up off the ground to prevent it from being in a bind.
That is sound advice, if you are both the person that dropped it, and the person that picks it up again – but if those are two different people, then it falls to the person picking it up, to fix the problem. That does not make it their responsibility, just their problem – so when someone gets hurt, the responsibility for that still belongs to more than just the injured party. How much belongs to whom, is what the courts are supposed to decide – but in order to get the behavior to change, punitive liability should be applied. Otherwise, where is the incentive for the uninjured party to change? How many people will their negligence subsequently help to injure? How many is too many?
sounds like the driver hasn’t a clear understanding how to properly hooking up to a trailer, Since i moved to north america i’ve seen many of these fools that are only able to drive at 70 miles an hour and fiddle their logbooks.
but if it comes to sliding axles or fifthwheels or even hooking to a trailer they suddenly got a donkey look in their eye’s.
how this is explained of what happend to the driver, she clearly had too much pressure on the landing legs, and she didnt know how solve that issue. I’m not these big trucking companies are good or bad, but this is just a moneygrab by the driver.
I really hope she doesn’t get a penny out of it.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a very common condition. I would check to see if that was the problem first.
First and foremost, there is no such thing as 1000000% I’m sure senationalism was intended. Nonetheless, if there was an issue with any equipment dispatch and safety should of been called so they could send a “qualified mechanic” to address the situation
Whether or not your an owner operator or employee there are SOP standard operating procedures in place that all o/o and employees should be familiar with.
Perhaps the idea of hurry up so they could get paid rather than wait for repair clouded their thought process resulting in driver error.
As a result it’s always the employer who is responsible in training morons. I meant employees
Swift deserves everything they get! One of there drivers hit my mirror tore it up. I got driver truck number, called police. Swift told that driver to leave now he has to go court for hit and run. Won’t pay the damage they caused. I’m a o/o. Swift throws their drivers to the wolf’s. They are GREED stricken fools and a disgrace to the trucking industry. I feel absolutely nothing for this piece or garbage company!!!!
I can see both sides of the issue. However, I drove for another National Brand for a year. I would have NEVER put my body parts in front of a tandem…no how, no way. Especially if a driver was in the cab! If it’s a two person op to slide the tandems 1) it’s messed up; 2) you better take extra care when sliding; and 3) inform roadside the trailer is messed up. Many bad things can & do happen…MOST, not all, non-driving incidents are avoidable, IMHO.
I had some close calls, but if I felt I was dealing with bad equipment, I called Roadside Assist, not dispatch. Dispatch won’t know anything technical, ever. Their instruction would be to call Roadside Assist, so why bother other than to tell them your screwed on leaving due to breakdown!!
Like someone said…most of the time common sense & feeling empowered to make the call to stop for your own safety is your best way to stay healthy & whole. That said, incidents do happen. Equipment brakes down, & you can’t always predict a crank gear seizing or, say, the 5-wheel not locking (which happened to me), or a driveshaft dropping. But you know when you start cranking if your getting significant resistence, something ain’t right!!
The jury knows absolutely nothing about how to even drop & hook under the simplest of circumstances. So the sympathy would be toward the injured party. Driving faulty equipment is a conscious choice. So is refusing the load because your not gonna endanger yourself just to pull a specific load (which I also did).
I’m very sorry these people were hurt. I’d never wish that on anyone. I was injured too, but it was my own fault b/c I made a conscious decision to take a shortcut & not do the safest thing to exit the trailer (I fell out of trailer & damaged my ankle).
Dear God…There’s two speeds to landing gear…If it’s stuck from pressure. You use the low gear first to release the pressure…Problem is they don’t teach trucking for dummies first. Although it’s too bad the women got hurt..
They ought to teach drivers how to drop a trailer.
For those who haven’t been told, or haven’t figured it out on their own: Leave an inch between the ground and the sand-pads (feet) when dropping an empty. A little less for a loaded trailer. You want the landing gear to lift off the ground when you connect. Then that handle will turn easily.
I would say that fewer than 30% of drivers know how to drop a trailer properly. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to an empty that I had to crank down because the driver ahead of me put the landing gear all the way down when it was loaded. Even more of a hassle if you don’t notice this, then over-shoot the kingpin. Now you gotta crank it up to get out from under it, then back down to the proper level. Because:Idiots
You got that right sudon’t
If something Is broke get break down on the phone. I’ve been trucking over 16 years some times if u pull forward or back up it takes stress off t he landing gear so u can crank it up easier.I’ve blseen drivers slam into the trailers backing up. Them pull forward to make sure the jaws are locked and then expect to crank it up easy .Not going to happen.
They hiring? I could find a way to get paid there.
It’s called the race to the bottom, and Swift, with its “Award Winning” drivers is at the forefront: what’s new?
I am curious to know what awards Swift drivers have won, or maybe that’s something somebody thought up at the company. “Best in Class” is another example of overstating from Swift.
All landing gears do that if you don’t know what your doing and position it a certain Way it will spring back. She might be able to sue fir lack of training but I don’t think there is anything wrong with the equipment.
Sounds like someone who doesn’t take responsibility for their actions and blames everyone else for their mistake then sees an opportunity to get some money the lazy way-sue someone because you are not smart enough to take care of yourself. The only person at fault here is the driver, if the equipment isn’t right use your head and quit blaming others for YOUR actions.
Carriers are responsible for maintaining equipment. If they consistently fail to do so adequately, then the bottom-feeding lawsuit leeches and their punitive lawsuits are the only mechanism that we have, to incentivize carriers to treat their responsibilities as seriously as they would like us to treat ours.
One time I was cranking up the legs and stepped into it and the crank handle hit my nutts! True story. I double over in pain. I sent a message to my dispatcher over the Qualcomm and told him what had happen to me and he, along with the whole office busted out laughing! WE all though it was funny as sh*t. I’ll never do that I again (step into the handle, while cranking it up hard ad fast)! Sounds to me like Swifty is in it for the money.
There are too many unanswered questions for an opinion on this incident such as:
Had this problem been previously reported and not repaired?
What were dispatches instructions?
Why didn’t the driver call “Roadside” or whatever Swift calls the road repair department?
If the driver saw the trailer was faulty and unsafe and dispatch insisted they pull the trailer, why didn’t the driver call the Safety Department?
As for the driver who got his foot run over, some of these same questions apply. I have run across trailers where the brakes wouldn’t hold well enough to slide the tandems before. You never put your foot in front of the wheels. That’s common sense. If you need the tandems forward, you back against a curb or do what I do, which is carry wheel chocks in my truck. You also have to determine if it’s safe to pull to the nearest shop. If not, have “Roadside” send someone to fix it on the spot.
If the company you drive for will not follow simple safety guidelines, rather than get injured or worse, you need to find a better truck company to drive for. I found one and these are basically the procedures followed there. Don’t just accept working for a crap company.
Not every driver has a broad choice of employment circumstances to select from. Most drivers have to work for at least one crappy company, and hope that they are lucky enough to get through it without any major problems, in order to be considered eligible to work at a better one. Many companies are happy to fire people for made-up or no reason at all, knowing full well that other carriers (Roehl, for example) will refuse to consider any driver who has been terminated for any reason, within the past 12 months.
It’s true that the driver bears the final responsibility for making a poor decision, but the carrier’s maintenance policy is what forced them to make a decision, in the first place. But the time that the driver failed, everyone else who had anything to do with that trailer, had already failed, before her. The only functional and existing way to incentivize them to pick up their responsibility in the future, instead of just continuing transferring it to the driver who picks up the trailer, is to levy punitive damages against them, and make it more expensive to abdicate this responsibility to that driver, than to seriously take it up.
Well I see all this. About who this driver should have called and what the driver should have done. This is what I know. The dispatcher is not the 1st person u call with a mechanical problem. It is the main finance dept once they find a solution are repair facility then u call the dispatcher and let them know what is happening and where u are getting repairs done. I myself am not a swift fan and maybe the dispatcher should have told the driver whom to call but I don’t see company neglagence
Trailer maintenance. I can’t say with certainty that the trailer was or wasn’t properly maintained, but that is the foundation of the the lawsuit – that claim that the injury would not have occurred, had the trailer been properly maintained in the first place. No call would have been necessary at all, and it would not have matter who she should have called, as a result. She would not have made whatever poor decision it was that she presumably made, that finally resulted in her injury, because the equipment would not have failed in whatever manner she is claiming that it did.
The correct counterclaim is either that proper maintenance was, indeed, performed; or that the equipment did not, in fact, malfunction; or that she did not, in fact suffer the injuries that she claims, as a result. If any of those things are sufficiently supportable in civil court, then she will lose her case. Blaming the injury on her poor judgement may mitigate the award that she gets, but it presumes that her claim is otherwise valid, and that she was injured as she claims, by faulty equipment, because her carrier neglected to properly maintain. Punitive damages (ridiculous dollar amounts) apply, if she can show a pattern of gross negligence leading up to her injury – consistent failure by her carrier, to properly maintain their equipment in safe condition.
As common as that is, in the industry, I’d be surprised if she *can’t* show that pattern.
A hand crank IS NOT a safety item… If one cant crank down or up the landing gear.. Then tell the dispatcher that you cant move the load.. Its that easy.. And if its just the crank.. Switch it out with another trailer. Crank up the gear.. And return the other crank to the other trailer.. Take the broken crank with you.. Get it replaced.. Come on. Do we not have any common sence?
Everything is safety equipment. Anything that injures you, was dangerous. You’re supposed to wear gloves when you turn that crank, not to keep your hands warm, but to protect you from injury. Too many of these hand cranks are rusty and have sharp edges – a tetanis infection waiting to happen. The correct thing for employers to do is to replace such worn components, and remove the risk, but you are also expected to use the proper safety equipment, to mitigate the risk of this and other types of potential injuries.
That doesn’t mean that if you are thusly injured, the employer is excused from responsibility for requiring you to operate unsafe equipment, but if you fail to use the proper safety equipment, the value of you claim may be diminished by “contributory negligence”. If you can show a pattern of behavior by the employer, illustrating that they are grossly negligent with regard to maintaining the equipment for safe use by the employee, then they are subject to “punitive damages”, which potentially multiply the dollar value of whatever actual damages the employer is found to be responsible for. That’s where the ridiculous dollar amounts come from – medical bills, lost wages, and whatever pain and suffering or other damages the plaintiff can set a dollar value to, multiplied, often up to three times, to punish the employer for not giving a about the safety of their employees.
Just another predator / lawyer looking for easy money and a driver that should now you call road repair or your company maintenance. The driver is responsible for the load and every aspect associated with the load after accepting dispatch. How you receive damage from landing gear that is possibly unsupported am not sure need more details. If you believe your dispatcher is responsible for service issues either you work for a super small operation or are inexperienced or not very bright. This story needs more facts on how the landing gear struck the driver to perceive where the blame lays. Bottom line the buck stops with the driver and if it’s unsafe and you pull it you risk others safety and csa points for your company and yourself.
The buck only stops with the driver because the carriers pass it to them. The carriers are still responsible for their part. That is the foundation of the lawsuit – that the carrier failed to do their part. Maybe the driver did, too, but that only mitigates the amount that is awarded to the driver – it does not excuse the carrier from their responsibility to take care of the issue before the driver had to decide how to deal with it.
If we allow the carriers to pass the buck to the driver, then the driver will always bear all responsibility. As employees, we do not own that equipment. It is only our responsibility inasmuch as we have to use it to do our jobs. Our primary job responsibility is transportation – safe transportation, to be sure, but we don’t get paid to sit around waiting for road service, and that fact clearly illustrates where the carrier priorities really are. So we are expected to do the best that we can with what we’ve got, until conditions are sufficiently bad that we are willing to stop getting paid, rather than continue. If what we’ve got is consistently garbage, then that’s a pattern of gross negligence by the carrier, and they should be held to account for that, as in incentive to change their priorities, accordingly – not just pass the buck on until it stops.
Can’t believe all the wrong responses here. It is an offense to knowingly dispatch an employee with defective equipment. Sure, she was cranking the handle, but we don’t know the facts. She might have been told the thing was repaired and boom, it wasn’t and she’s injured. If the trailer was reported to dispatch, just like you hand your log books and trip inspections to them, and the company failed to take action they are liable. There are a lot of companies playing this game – pretending they fixed a reported defect, or just dispatching equipment with previously reported defects. Some companies don’t pay any attention to what their drivers report on the trip inspections. If you guys are drivers, you know this is true.
I agree 1000%, I love the comments that immediately bash the driver. Like trucking is not “Doggy Dog” …Like getting a knife in the back is not common place. …Like dispatchers have your best interest at hand. Give me a break, if you haven’t experienced these kind of things then your not a driver who has been doing this for any length of time. 16 years for me. No one here knows the facts…no one but the driver, her attorney, and the mega carrier.
But let me add this scenario …: Driver sends a Qualcomm message saying the equipment is not working properly, then gets a message from dispatch saying call me on the phone… (((NO RECORD))) Dispatch says go ahead and take it, or some kind of threat is made about the drivers job or record. Just the Drivers word against Dispatch …if you haven’t experienced this, do worry you will and if your naive enough to immediately bash this driver, without knowing the facts, that says more about you as a human being than as a fellow driver.
Very few get into trucking because they love it, it’s a last ditch job for many and as soon as they can find better, they move on..hince the 100% turnover. Your lying to yourself if you believe anything differently. But to each their own… I personally hope she wins, nothing will ever change if you don’t fight back, for yourself, or for your profession.
Good Wall Street Journal article this week about Swift’s Founder and CEO sucking the company…read it…
some people are just looking to sue and blame others … most of us have suffered injuries , dealt with them and moved on … you reap what you sow … if it’s legit … fine … otherwise , Jessica will get it back , in the end … lol … no pun intended
Any driver with any experience knows that some older trailers will have a crank that will sometimes as you crank it will feel like it is spring loaded as your cranking it. If that happens it is not in the correct gear. If you crank it like that and let go it will spin back around as it is spring loaded. This lady probably did that and now she wants her payday. I certainly don’t wish her getting hurt, but things happen in trucking. I personally had that happen to me and the crank nailed me in the head. I never sued anyone. It was my fault that my hand slipped from the crank letting it happen. Personal responsibility is an enduring quality. Wish more people had it.
I work for a mega carrier and been with them for years. The procedure is very simple…you don’t even have to call…grab your QualComm and we use the macro form that goes directly to road service, type in your problem, the trailer #, and I’m yet to see them not take care of it, also you send a message to your fleet mgmt over the QualComm and let them know the situation and that you have road service in the loop. End of subject, they will let you know when a road service repair truck will be out, or whatever Is needef. I had a drop n hook preldd trailer one time wear the entire lanfing gesr was broke, our road service had the trailer shop foreman come down and give them an estimate, had them tow it to their trailer shop and gave me another load from same shipper. Like other drivers have said here, trailer problems?..you don’t accept it and let the road service dept handle it. I’ve never had them tell me yet to hook up and take it as is. End of story
If we have an issue with a trailer we drop, we red tag the service line and contact our manager, which then contacts maintenance, after the problem is resolved maintenance removes the tag. I have seen green drivers, which did not have the training to handle most situations which are fairly commonplace and easy to fix. A mini sledge is a very useful tool, which shockingly not all drivers carry. How many drivers have I seen have an issue with the tandem pins being stuck, or frozen brakes, and saying they can’t take the load when a couple of bangs with a mini sledge would solve the problem. Landing gear being wedged occurs more often than I like to think when hooking up, but I always start in low until the pads are loose then switch to high, yes if you crank on bound gear in high and release the handle it will snap back at you, the driver should relize that after half a turn or so the gear ia bound and to use caution. I have had two issues with gear, one was the rod connecting both sides broke, so I used the crank on one side and a monkeu wrench on the other, the other was the cross bracing rotted out, so I dropped the empty trailer in the yard and red tagged it. The issue is that drivers are not trained on how to handle common problems they will face, and altough not an out of service issue they are a safety issue if not handled properly, which comes from training.
I have worked for several carriers for whom red-tagging and writing it up is the policy, but it applies only to company yards with maintenance facilities. If you pick up a dropped trailer at a leased or customer yard in the middle of the night, you’re on your own – and just to add insult to injury, you’re on your own in the dark.
Moreover, maintenance tightly restricts distribution of the tags. In one instance, I went to Staples and ordered a box of 1000 tags, and began distributing them to drivers, myself. Within a week, the tag colors used by maintenance had been changed, and red was no longer acceptable.
If a carrier wants to avoid a maintenance problem, they will find a way to do so – and if a maintenance problem is going to create a budget issue, then they are going to want to avoid it. Keeping maintenance costs down is the performance measure for that department head, and you’re only as good as last quarter’s performance. With luck, you’ll get promoted, transferred, or find a better job, and next quarter won’t be your problem.
This is quite often how the reasoning goes.
Guys and gal: put this way as simple:
– All this fault is about to blaim on goverment. They put company out of service in many different way, one of them is clearly on FEDEX case and swiff 2nd case. No need to discuss father. Goverment they are basiclly telling driver to be lazy, find way to sue, get free money etc by turn down above cases.
– Court system rather protect idiot employees who sence in a moment (????) and push the company hard enought to be out of bussiness, leaving behind the rest of good employee no job right after from that company.
———
Let see if when and how this battle gonna stop once bad urgly arrow already shoot out.
Finah i have to agree swiff company stupidly from drivers to supervisor.
And ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly why insurance companies and trial lawyers rule the world. Because of Darwin Award deserving idiots like this one, who feel if they chip a nail driving a truck they somehow are not responsible for what they did but its always someone else’s fault. What ever happened to individual responsibility and common sense? A very dangerous precedent is been set by spilling a hot cup of coffee, and the insane lawsuits after that. Sadly it’s become all too common to play litigation lotto.
The coffee lady wasn’t an employee, and she was not required to use that coffee in the completion of her job. I’ve heard it said that the coffee was, in fact, defective (190+ degrees, which is insanely hot for something you’re supposed to pour down your throat), but I’m not actually certain about that. As I understand it, she asked for actual damages, at first, but when McDonald’s flatly declined, it turned into a lawsuit, and eventually a media story, and then a settlement.
McDonald’s probably should have actually looked into her claims, and given their position a little more serious thought, before just refusing to pay – they could have probably gotten off a lot cheaper, if they had.
Corporate responsibility is just as important as individual responsibility, and while there is sure to be more Darwin Award winners, that doesn’t necessarily exclude their employers from winning the McDonald’s Award, if they choose to be irresponsible, too.
Another low life trying to sue!!! If you are so stupid that you can’t operate a landing gear crank, why in the world would you be driving a truck. Driver is accountable. Your the captain of the ship. You have the right to refuse to haul it if it deems unsafe. Guess she missed that part of training!!!
The right to refuse does not come without it’s consequences. And the driver is merely the last person in a long chain of people that are also accountable for their responsibilities – or, at least, should be. The driver is not the only person who works for the carrier, and they are not solely responsible for the equipment and the load. They probably didn’t put the load in the trailer – they may not even be allowed to look inside the trailer to see it – and they are unlikely to be allowed to perform necessary maintenance tasks, even if doing so is within their skills. Certainly, it’s not in their job description. All they can do is say, “Nope. I’d rather sit here for free and wait for road service, than risk running in this piece of crap to try to feed my family.”
They have the right to refuse, but exercising that right is not without it’s consequences, and carriers have to be held to account for their safety responsibilities and failures, the same as drivers are.
I don’t know what the specific issue was, with the crank, but her claim is that it was malfunctioning, and that the malfunction was severe enough that she addressed the issue with her designated supervisor, before proceeding under his instructions. If he was the wrong person to give those instructions, then, as her supervisor, he probably should have connected her with the right person instead of giving them. If they were the wrong instructions, then he probably should have given her different ones. He may not have been directly responsible for the maintenance issue, but that doesn’t excuse the carrier from responsibility for it. I don’t remember any mention that she was suing her dispatcher – just the carrier – and shipper? Not sure how the latter is responsible, but it’s certainly possible, if it were the shipper’s trailer, or the shipper were contractually obligated to be responsible for it’s maintenance.
If the shipper loaded the trailer too heavy in the nose, or even used a oversized fork lift, that would automatically put too much pressure on the landing gears, and if it was in the crank hook, then after loading that hooks pressed against the bottom of the trailer. There is no normal way to get that crank to a safe point without either raising the trailer to relieve pressure with the truck, or have a yard spotter raise it… Any other way is gonna be manually or forcefully trying to move the crank which I have seen multiple times spring back and easily cause this type of injury or worse. I say Swift and the shipper are both guilty!. Swift knows its trailer limits and before a shipper loads an unhooked trailer they need to know how to properly load it, its not a one size fits all deal. So these loaders yelling that the driver has to unhook before they can load, should have to raise the trailer if they caused the crank to jam. .. The Pros get my point, new guys keep this in mind and put that yard guy to work, or JUST DROP YOUR AIR BAGS THEN RAISE THE TRAILER!!!!!
Wow so many truck driving attorney’s ??? so critical with their opinions of what the driver should have done and who should be responsible…man quit trucking and start your own law firm…and represent yourself in everything ??.
I’m so happy the driver reported it, then took the steps to complete the job, it’s unfortunate she was injured, but I’m ecstatic she had the wherewithal to seek competent legal counsel and I hope she’s royally compensated for her pain.
…the driver is responsible for the equipment ???. ?..not the Mega carrier …or the shipper? Really??? Ridiculous !! Boy if any listened to the advice given on these comments not only would we as drivers continue to think we are responsible for these repairs, but next we should start cracking open our own wallets…just so we can keep the wheels rolling. …Again RIDICULOUS !! ???
30% of attorneys are alcoholics… wish I remembered where I read that…
There are a lot more of them than there is work for them to do – well, paid work, anyway. Lots of people who can’t afford it need legal advice, because what they do for internships and other unpaid work, is write more and more complex, confusing, and confounding law for them to get paid to argue about.
In fairness, truck driving, with all it’s warts, is still probably a marginally less stressful occupation – certainly less expensive to get into. Maybe, if we ever start making enough money, and get a little bit more off-duty time than we need to sleep, eat, and shower… maybe then I’ll pursue an online law degree, take the bar exam, and go work for one of those megacarriers that keep stickin’ it to the drivers… Since it’s the carriers that have the money; that’s where the lucrative work is… 😛
“F” you guys! I’ve got student loans to pay off! 😛
It is evident that 90 percent of people commenting do not know squat about trucking or trucks or for that matter how things work so I will in lighten you. The chain goes like this… immediately call dispatch..dispatch will then notify load planers in case load may be delayed ..load planer will then decide one of two things leave load as is or reschedule. .while they work that out the dispatcher will do one of two things either connect you to shop.. or tell you to call road maintenance. .aka shop. And tell you to keep them informed them being dispatch. If you don’t know that then don’t make dumb Azz remarks.. but rather learn something from this post …
America is held together by trucks and knowledge is power .. keep safe and keep the big picture..remember your Goal. .get out and look.
I don’t understand how a landing gear can flip around. It only moves when the driver is exerting pressure against it. She should have felt any resistance that was excessive and stopped turning the crank. She was incompetent in performing her job and is not taking responsibility for her actions
when you work for free basically, you have make a living somehow..why not a cash settlement for a few thousand to make up for all those hours sitting , waiting on a load?
Many people drove for swift century’s ago and all of sudden they are experts about swifts today’s oporations.
This issues that y’all talking about can go both ways but swift will never pay a dime to this driver. Here is one thing drivers hate to hear:”I have being doing this for 20 years” if you were driving for 20 years then you shouldn’t be doing it still.ok? 20 years ago you worked for swift for 32cpm but now it’s 55cmp doing exactly same thing. Swift is not going anywhere and fact they are swallowing all the small companies thanks to hauling for cheap. Now tell me why the hell the shipper will pay you $4per mile instead of paying 55cpm to swift? Remember it’s not all about driver satisfaction it’s all about CUSTOMER satisfaction. Yes swift have drivers come and go but swift is gaining more customers everyday as result you are losing a load to swift. There is no short cut guys!!! You might haul $10k load a day and you might not get another $10k load for next 3 months. Swift can give me $300 load a day for 12 months as result I’m making more then you so stop whining and drive smart. For those who want to get hurt and sue company don’t even be that stupid. To qualify for significant amount of settlement you have to be disabled perm, the doctor has to certify it and again no short cut. If you get cut red handed then you will be baned perm to work any company.
So… Swift is not hauling any freight for 55cpm. They would lose money hand-over-fist, this way. That might be what they pay the driver, but no driver is getting $4 per mile, either. That may be what is billed to some shippers, but lots of expenses come out of it, before it gets to the driver.
And it is certainly possible to get significant settlements in lawsuits; it happens all the time. The most lucrative approach is to make a credible claim of gross negligence, typically involving lost income, medical expenses, pain and suffering, permanent disability, and/or death. All of those things do happen in trucking, but you don’t have to die, to sue for a lot of money. If you are sufficiently injured that you can no longer clear a DoT physical, then you are effectively disabled, because you can no longer perform the functions of the job that you are trained to do. Whatever the term of the disability, physical therapy, and/or retraining that you may have to do, effectively determines your lost income. If you will not be able to earn comparable wages in another profession, then the difference between earnings levels is also lost income, for the rest of your working career.
This can easily be a lot of money, multiplied up to three times, for punitive damages stemming from gross negligence, and attorneys are pretty good at finding ways to justify very large numbers. Most people with credible claims wind up settling out of court for less than they might have gotten in court, but many are willing to accept the lesser figure in consideration of the possibility that they might not have won, or that they might not have gotten it soon enough to keep them from financial ruin. Others may question whether they would actually have gotten the figure that they asked for. Some get more, at settlement, in consideration for dropping the suit without requiring the company to admit fault, to put a quick end to a public relations and/or media fiasco, or in exchange for accepting a clause requiring them to maintain secrecy about the case.
There are certainly ways to get significant settlements without having to be all that seriously hurt – but yes, it does inflate the dollar value of the case. So get yourself right into that cement mixer, and get your payday, today! 😛
So how many of us have never had landing gear come back and smack us in the arm or, as in my experience, the face? That was the first and only time I ever tried to crank gear that was under tension from the load. That’s what the low gear is for. Get the weight off of it, then go to high gear.
The way I see it, it’s her own damn fault for trying to short-cut a basic function of her job.
These Truck Stop Lawyers on here are awesome! Now where to turn to if I ever need legal help!!
Sorry, man… the Bar Association won’t let us amateurs represent you in court, or even offer professional legal advice. They have this protected monopoly on Justice, where you can even sue to break it up unless you’re in the club… 😛
You’re on your own, man… 😛
SWIFT……thats all I needed to read……people will do anything to get money that they didnt earn…..SWIFT will settle….cheaper to pay than to fight in court…
I think before anyone wants to be so judgemental ~ all the Facts should be known. Whether or not on the Level of Experience ~ the real issue is what if Nerve Damage occurred & YOU weren’t able to do what you love so much anymore? What if the injury was so serious it changed your whole Life around… what if you did everything you could & not even the Yard Jockey was able to lift it up because it sat so Low past the tires. Don’t You think after many years of Loyalty your Business Partner if it were “Swift” should have been there for you since Your required to maintain your Tractor shouldn’t THEY be required to maintain their Trailer? Many procedures were taken BUT none followed by Swift. Keep that in mind Ladies & Gentlemen when your out there doing what you LOVE and in a split second your life changes forever. So be Safe on the Road & Enjoy it as long as you can ~ Just Saying…
If everyone keeps sueing swift they may fold….then what???? Lol
Good luck with getting money from Swift. I’m still waiting for any action on the lawsuit about Swift having it’s own guide for miles paid. (How many years!)This thing with most companies paying less than miles driven is a ripoff.
And yes she is ultimately responsible for saying yes or no about using anything unsafe.
She should also never have been presented with the necessity to make that decision. It is *not* all on the driver. It falls to the driver, last. If the driver has to make that call, then everyone else had already failed.
Yeah… Driver error. If I see a problem with any part with the trailer “during pretrip or during the hooking up” process than “hell no, I’m not messing with that trailer”. I’m leaving the Son of bit*h there. I’ll call it in as a out of service & leaving. I’m responsible for everything that I choose to pick up and run…safely.
25 yrs of driving and had never had a crank swing freely enough to hit me. Except when the landing gear was of the ground and I spun it fast intentionally. The only other time it has spun on me was when I cranked the landing gear down too far instead of cranking it up. Did it spin back and hit me? Yes. Did it hurt? Yes. Injure me bad enough that I couldn’t work anymore? No!! In fact even when I fell off a loaded flatbed trailer onto the pavement (between 12-15 feet) I still am able to work. Had 8 surgeries to repair a broken wrist, broken arm and broken hip in the last 4 yrs and only missed enough time to heal up. So if this person can no longer work after getting her hand hit, she is full of crap and doesn’t need to be in this industry.
Here’s two tricks I learned to remedy these common trucking problems. If you have a slider that is frozen (stuck), pull the release hand out as far as you can and secure it with a good tarp bungee or use another driver to keep pressure on it. Next take a hammer and tap on the pins until you find the one that’s bound up. A few good whacks on that pin(s) will cause it to free itself. Works every time. If the trailer is to high to hitch, find the leveling valve on the tractor air ride and loosen one side of the rubber connector. work the valve by hand to inflate the bags until the dollies are free. Use the valve to low the bags, re secure the rubber boot and it will reset it’s self. Oh and use your fifth wheel pin puller to pull the slider rod. gives you more leverage and keeps you away from the tandems………..