Reporting accident to safety when it's tiny and not your fault?

Always report damage, even if it's microscopic. Keep that DAC report full.

 

Don’t matter what the damage is, the thing you don’t get is the fact that contact WAS MADE and no matter how insignificant YOU THINK this is, it isn’t your opinion that counts.

Covers your butt, always. Call your company, tell them what happened in detail and send the photos to them.

 

Report it...

Some tips on taking pictures of ANY accident..

Get pictures from the other vehicles point of view including from a distance. Look for skid and/or yawl marks on the pavement; they show what the other guy was doing...

Avoid blood, guts and gore! Every picture you take is 'Discoverable' meaning the other parties lawyers get handed copies during the 'discovery phase' of a lawsuit and the get ALL of them, along with any reports and statements you have made...

From personal experience, get the other guy's door sign, dot number and license plate pictures.

We had a guy's Windshield shattered by ice off another tractor trailer. The driver followed and stopped the guy; got the troopers to make a report.

The trooper was too nice, he didn't ticket the other guy, despite NJ's laws about removing snow and ice. Then he let us drive off at the next exit avoiding the usual extortionate towing Turnpike invoice VRS a 'normal' towing bill

The trooper screwed up the report. first he listed my tractor, a Penske lease, as belonging to someone else in another state and the other tractor was identified as belonging to Bergey's truck center...a truck dealership instead of the carrier who the driver said was operating the truck.

The only picture my guy took of the other tractor was the unit numbers on the back of the day cab along with a dozen pictures of his shattered windshield.

Take pictures of the whole scene from every direction; if an auto was involved, squat down to approximate the 4 wheeler's eye level you want to document everything you can.

NJ Turnpike reports take a few weeks thru Buy Crash.com. So I waited two weeks to get a report that does not name the carrier who struck us...now the picture of the door sign and license plate would have given me enough info to challenge the report and given me the information needed to keep from eating a windshield replacement and tow bill.

With today's cell phone cameras being so common, there is no reason not to take a lot of pictures.....

 

Or you could ask the other driver for $50 or else you report it.

 

Well, it wasn't your fault. Is your company going to see it and make it your problem whenever you turn in the truck? The damage wasn't there when they issued you the truck. Will they want you to pay for it or "ding" you for it in some way?

Don't feel bad about it (not that it isn't a crappy situation, it is). It's your butt on the line and it wasn't your fault it happened. Not your truck, not your choice really.

I don't think a scratch on the mirror is going to affect the selling price when the company sells it... Doubtfull it is going to matter. But you can't take the chance as a company driver.

You could ignore it, I have, and taken a chance. But I can't say it was worth it.

 

If it is very minor damage and the other driver stays on the scene and acknowledges what he did, I don't report it until the next day, and I say I didn't witness it. This happened just this way two weeks ago.
And if it is so minor they'd never notice it unless I told them,
they won't ever notice it
because I won't ever tell them.

For me, It's not about protecting the other driver at all. It's about protecting myself from 3 hours of unpaid aggravation talking to cops, talking to dispatch , talking to safety or whoever , taking pictures, sending pictures, filling out electronic forms, etc.
I need to sleep during my break, so I can make my money and do it safely. That's what I'm out here for. Not to exhaustively document trivia pro bono.

 

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