We all made bonehead mistakes in our first months/year. There's lots of little things that get you in trouble that are easily remedied ... once you make the mistake once and figure out where you went off the beam. As you venture into new places at difficult times, you'll find more trouble spots. The key is to catch yourself before you contact another object, then learn what was done wrong and how to avoid the next time. It's hard to say how these incidents will affect your hire-ability going forward but I agree with just calling them private property incidents as long as they were relatively minor as you eluded to.
Excerpt from conversation I just had with myself. Moose: Don't do it. Me: Yes but there is inaccurate information in here. Moose: Still don't do it, all your going to do is cause a font war and get your comments removed. Me: Oh alright can I at least put this gif up? Moose: yes, that works.
Nothing serious that I can see. Shouldn't be difficult to get back on the road. Where is your location? Why did you report hitting the old weathered 4x4 posts if there was no damage to the truck or trailer? Tell us your location; state & nearest city, and we'll have you rolling in a few days.
There are guys and gals on the road with far more serious accidents and roll overs. Although, maybe a breather would be good for you because you need to get your head out of your backside and think about whether trucking is really what you want. Just because some companies hire bad drivers doesnt mean they deserve to be on the road either. Nobody out on the road likes drivers that cant figure out how to turn a trailer. 7 months...come on. Thats plenty of time. Get your priorities straight.
Is there some reason you don't look in the mirror in a turn? You can see if the trailer is going to run something over. It shouldn't be that hard to avoid...
Career being toast? That little bit? Ive destroyed property in the 5 figures for some very good reasons having been this close to missing and not hitting anything. I don't understand this irrational fear of the young or inexperienced who are saying that somehow the trucking life is over due to a little bit of breakage. If you are any driver at all, you will hit something once, learn from it and never do that again. Always assess what you are getting into. Sometimes that means not getting into a spot. Ive gotten into profane arguments with bosses demanding the trailer go here where in my professional judgement here means breaking this and that getting in here. USUALLY this and that got broke leading to another round of yelling, with me saying just like I say it will. No one listens to me. That is the majority of my property damage accidents. It's better to simply take the load back to the shipper instead of incurring that kind of damage. Big truck does not always fit. You need to examine everything with a sort of mental map of pretend tire tracks you will make trying to get into a turn in or something getting into a tight spot. If you think the imaginary tire tracks will run over something or your mirrors tell you that trailer is fixing to mash something STOP and don't mash it. Im not here to make trouble or make you feel small or somehow a bad driver. You have to be all eyes and look everywhere because anything you can do to NOT break stuff with that big truck in some of the places we go into is a VERY good day. All profit and no damage or firing. You will get back out there soon enough. Just stop living in fear of a pernament removal from the industry because that trailer broke something that is not always painted yellow. There are 256 million other colors plus your eyes can see besides yellow. Right?
Dragging a 53 foot trailer around with tandems all the way back, in New Jersey, would challenge even the best driver. But this is easily corrected.
So many places don't use DAC so I wouldn't worry about it. Personally, working for places that do use DAC are usually the worst. Pay closer attention and/or slow down. Learn from your mistakes and be more careful. Don't let anyone ever rush you around. That's when accidents happen.
