Not a phone call you want at 5 am

the one problem with working for a small company is that no one is in the office after hours. When I had my wreck in Arlington, Tx. in '01, I was stressing the calls. Since I work for a small family owned company (mom/dad started it, dad died, mom and the kids ran it til the mom retired 2 yrs ago), I started going down the list of making calls. First called the two brothers, they take turns as dispatchers and mechanics, couldn't get ahold of them, tried calling the sister and she was out (couldn't even get them on their cells). Finally got a hold of the Mom at home. She was calm about it, which I guess calmed me down, I told her what happened. She told me to relax and one of the others would call me shortly. Within about 5 minutes she got the daughter to call me. She walked me through everything and told me to get a hotel room for the night and then check the truck out in the morning and call her back. They had me take the truck to a Mack dealer in the am to make sure it would make it back to Denver, then had me go for my piss test before hitting the road for home.

That accident changed the way the company does things, now if any of us are on the road at night they never leave home without their cellphones, and they never turn them off.

 

Okay I won't get so mad next time someone bumps the back of my my trailer at 3am while parking in a pitch black hole. I've been knocked out of bed a few times that way. That Pilot in Braselton Ga is the worst ! Trucks backed up onto the road is common made worse by those three drivers that always park in the entry/exit drive.

I'm surprised no one caught onto a hidden lesson found in here. Some trucking companies have a form in their safety/accident kit that is basically a form that the other motorist can sign admitting fault. Nobody in their right mind would or should sign one of these but you can't blame some dirt ball OTR outfit from trying. The at fault driver in this accident could possibly still have a job had he not signed away every chance his company had to lessen the damages against them.

 

YOU mean a dispatcher has a mind ? WOW!!!! Would be nice if they could find instruction manual on how to use it

 

ya u got to watch out for those usa truck drivers most of them CAN'T drive

 

oh man, I love things like this to happen...

of course since I drive tow truck, I am like the circling vulture looking for victims..

This one happened this last weekend. Towed it to the dealer for quick repairs and a new tire so they could drive back to the terminal

 

saw this truck at a terminal.....sorry about the blurry pic but the other picture had a truck number on it I don't know the story behind it