Collateral Damage

collateral damage

–noun
1.
the killing of civilians in a military attack.


2.
any damage incidental to an activity




A certain amount of Collateral Damage is expected in the military. Weather it be in wartime or peace.

When the scientist come up with a new drug, a certain amount of people are allowed to have adverse effects and even die from taking the drug and it will still be approved by the FDA.

I used to really let it bother me when I would get some sort of ticket or something unpleasant would occur while performing my job as a truck driver. Then it dawned on me. The average motorist drives say fifty miles in a day. The average over the road trucker drives between four and six Hundred miles a day. So ideally the average OTR driver will get thirty five hundred miles per week. Now I’ve been driving long enough to know that ain’t going to happen on a regular basis. So let’s be fair to the four wheelers and say twenty five hundred miles per week. We try to do better I know but the rule of thumb I’ve always gone by is that if a company can’t get me at least twenty five hundred miles per week then I’m with the wrong company. So if a person whom does not drive for a living drives two hundred and fifty miles per week. That would mean that a OTR driver drives Ten Times that of a non professional driver.. So that means that it would take a non professional driver Ten Years to drive the miles a OTR driver would drive in One Year.

How many tickets or accidents does the average motorist have in a ten year period? Now how many tickets or accidents does the average OTR driver have in one year? If anyone thinks that they can drive OTR on a continuous basis and not have anything happen they are being optimistic at the very least. Skill does play a part in this but would you not agree that things happen to the best of Any profession? This is what I call Collateral Damage!

Is there something that has happened to you as a OTR driver that you would put in this category?

 

We were spending a few days in Indianapolis with family and waited till the last min. to leave. Well stupid me didnt update our log befor we left and figured I would do it when we delivered in Columbus later that day. Well I had a headlight out and that prompted the OH. state police to pull me over and ask for my log. He shut us down for eight hrs. and the load had to get rescued. I should have updated my log and I did'nt. "Collateral Damage"

 

Last year I was driving west on I-30. I had a fed-ex load I was taking to Ft. Worth from New Jersey. At one point I was passing this tanker around the same time we were both going by an exit that had just turned loose a bunch of cars that had been waiting on the light to turn green. I was half way up the tankers trailer when I saw that it would be desirable for him to be in the left lane. Well it was too late for that. There was an elderly lady in the first position of all the motorist trying to get on the interstate. She seen all the traffic coming and came to a stop on the on ramp to wait for a break. The Pick Up behind her decided to jump out in the slow lane.. The tanker later said that if he just would have gone it never would have happened. When the pick up jumped out in front of the tanker the pick up came to a stop, as if to hold the door for the older lady driving the car in front of him. The Tanker hit the pick up and knocked the front end of the truck in the hammer lane. Like I said I was half way up the tankers trailer. I slowed down but there was nothing I could do. After hitting the front quarter panel of the pick up at about 50 mph my truck seemed to just glide over to the median. I was able to keep the left side of the truck on the shoulder of the road then eas it back up on the interstate to coast over to the right side and come to a stop. If it wasnt for my moose bumper thing would have been alot differant. "Collateral Damage"