Rookies MUST READ: The nightmare that was supposed to be a step up the career ladder

therein lies the problem with your mindset and why you just don't get it. scratches, dents and dings do NOT happen in this industry if you're paying attention to what you're doing. the only time you should get a scratch, dent or ding is if SOMEONE ELSE puts it there.

jumping a kingpin, and to the point where the header contacts and damages a fairing is inexcusable. it shows you don't follow good practices by stopping just under the trailer to be sure it isn't too high instead of just blindly backing under it until it stops.....on something.....which in this case was the fairing.

likewise with dropping the tandems off in the mud to the point you had to get extracted. it shows that a) either you didn't care and knew they were there and just thought you'd just drive it through and out or b) you just weren't paying attention. I didn't have to be there. these were your own admissions.

as for the 3rd one who can say? given the pattern of behavior already exhibited it's 50/50 whether you actually hit the other truck or not.

actually I AM indeed a card carrying member of the supertrucker hall of fame and was awarded the membership by the president of the hall of fame himself. that's an inside joke to which you are not privy but some of the others that have posted here are and will get a laugh out of it....but, since you made the comment..........

3 years, 9 months, over 500k with 0 accidents, 0 CSA score, 0 tickets, 0 violations, 0 damage, speaks for itself though.



now as to the recruitment and hiring practices......it's pretty much industry practice at the 2nd and 3rd tier and lower companies to which you've been relegated to dealing with. they have far too many people coming through the revolving orientation door each week to pay for the cost of doing all of those checks before people show up. too many people don't show up, whether due to accepting other positions or deciding they didn't want to go with that company or a myriad of other reasons. those checks are expensive in the numbers they do them in and they just aren't going to do it until they see who actually shows up each week and who doesn't. a pre-hire or invitation to orientation with these bottom tier companies only means you look good on paper, nothing more.....besides, they're paying out enough in bent fairings and tow bills to process all these applications before someone actually shows up. a recruiter's job is to get you to orientation, not do the HR/safety departments job to see whether you actually will meet the qualifications on anything more than a superficial level.

the better, higher end companies like the one I work for are very selective who they hire and don't hire many drivers and therefore can afford to and do these checks before you're ever even offered a plane ticket to be flown to orientation.

 

The first bold statement says that you never hit anyone else but you in fact have with the fairing damage. Maybe you did not hit them on the road but they should have been easier to avoid if they were not moving.

The whole second statement boils down to this.... YOU can not prove you did not do it! I hit an elk at about 40 mph and I even saw it happen but I barely felt it. It felt more like a bump in the road. Scratching a hood you would not feel at all. Maybe you did do it maybe you did not but you can not prove it. The receiver has no responsibility to turn over security tapes to you. If you were the only one that delivered on that day then you did it.

I went to use another one of our trucks to pull a trailer in because we had to tow the tractor. Guess what I found that no body did???? A big gouge out of the sidewall of the left steer tire. I could even see the cords and some were cut. How that tire was still together I don't know but no one did it. It was pretty easy to figure out though... It was not like that the day before and the shop used it to back a trailer in.... Well guess what? Until I went to use it, that mechanic was the only one that had moved that truck that day. Pretty easy to figure out.

It is people like you that want to sue for things that they are responsible for like the lady with the coffee at Mc Donalds or the guy that put his motorhome on cruise control then got up to make a sandwich. Grow up, learn from it and move on. Oh and quit whining.

My first day I took a right hand turn too sharp and took down a stop light... $1200... That was 2 years ago and the only thing I have hit (except the elk but he was moving... LOL) Now I pull things that are 90 feet long and do not hit stuff. I don't care how much you watched your mirrors, with that kind of turn you CANNOT see what the back of your trailer is doing. You would have better visibility out your passenger window. Sounds to me like one of the doors swung open and scratched the hood rather than the back of the trailer. I don't pull vans but I would have made the turn THEN opened the doors but that is just me. I don't want the possibility of crap falling off my trailer.

 

An accident is just an accident on their charts, plus you owed them for $2600, for the repairs, even though they had an extra fairing, that just saved the cost of the fairing, still had down time of putting it on, the mechanics time that he could be working on another truck that may have needed mechanical repairs. The fact of the matter is you quit for the greener pastures where as people always say, "The grass is greener on the other side.." and you were gullible enough to be pulled into the recruiter means. One question you should ask yourself, especially going from mega carrier to mega that hire newbies is, "If they pay $10k better a year, then why would anyone start for this company instead of that one.." One thing about most megas is they are pretty much all the same, they'll tell you what you want to hear to get you there, but once you are there, the recruiter job is done, and whatever he told you has been long forgotten.

Man/Woman doesnt matter on this matter, they know you have two malfunctions against you so when someone says you have hit something else, they know that there is a 99% chance that you have hit something else.
Looks like now you have a choice to find you some company that hauls scrap or wait until at least one of the accidents rolls off.

As the great Winston Churchill once said, "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."

 

"In November I was charged with a 3rd preventable, but I know for a FACT that it was not caused by me. Because I had done a pivot/U-turn manuever in a tight lot at a consignee's dock area, and I got out and looked 3 times. Anyways, I was charged with hitting the front of a truck with the rear of my trailer. The trucks were all parked across from the docks. I contested it and appealed, but I might have well have been trying to spray water from a garden hose into the wind. My appeal was denied, so I am going to have to fork out money for an attorney and try to fight it, because it's basically setting the rest of what I am about to tell you in motion. "

Who "charged" you for hitting the truck and why did they decide it was you?

 

I hope she can and does make $65000 at knight trans so all the nay-sayers will get off their high horses and STHU...she made a few rookie mistakes like we all did but all the cheap shots at her are unnecessary. watch where you throw them stones huh. smh..........

 

For all is worth in my opinion no one is perfect and the only thing i believe you did wrong leaving Werner before you where 100% sure that you had the job with Knight, Like some of the other drivers suggested you should have the key's in your hand before you resigned your old job. As far as talking to an attorney I really think forget about it and move on, i don't think it will get you anywhere.

Just my 2 cents.

 

The costs don't matter. Irregardless if it was $1 or $10,000, still an accident. That doesn't matter how much it costs. And unless you were under contract with Knight, you have no recourse. Ever hear of catfish? Look it up. Would you sue a guy you were talking to and left a boyfriend for and when he meets you he's no longer interested? Of course you wouldn't.

 

Honestly you guys are laying it in a little thick here with the holier than thou BS. Seriously...some of you guys that have been driving for 14 years or whatever really have nothing better to do than pick on idiot rookies for making idiot rookie mistakes? Whatever.

OP: hard lesson learned about how some of these companies conduct business and of course how your track record can and will come back to bite you if you let it. A lot of these guys are flipping you crap because they don't need an essay from you about this stuff...they already know how all of this works because half of them went through it themselves. youll either put it behind you and stick around (in the industry) or be de facto forced out due to driving record and will have to go do something else for a living, which for a LOT of guys turns not being the worst thing in the world that ever happened to them (but that's a whole other topic)

 

I made plenty of mistakes. Still do. I go the wrong way sometimes. When I started I knocked a trailer door off. It's not that she made mistakes. It's the attitude that she has.

 

It doesn't hurt to talk to an attorney, but I don't think you will hear the answer you want. Personally, if it were me, I would chalk this up to a learning experience, put it behind me, and work my arse off to have a perfect driving career at Fed Ex.

Good luck, with whatever life throws at you!