Hopefully you get lucky and don’t hear anymore about it. The guy may have just taken the picture in case his safety department said something. People, in spite of what they say, show their ID all the time when buying alcohol and cigarettes. If it was possible to get you into too much trouble those foreigners working a gas stations would memorize the number while they looked at it and sell it on the black market.
Didn't hit the trailer beside me, the driver asked for my license
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by D.Train, Apr 6, 2021.
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For that matter, they could easily wear a small video camera and get pictures of every ID that came in front of them. I tend to think your biggest problem is if he tries to pin the blame on you.
Rideandrepair Thanks this. -
NavigatorWife, God prefers Diesels, Rideandrepair and 1 other person Thank this.
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Try to remember if the place had cameras in the dock area. Most do nowadays just for stuff like this.
At this point I would not call safety, but instead mention if they do call if they had cameras or not. Then safety can tell the other company to get the video or pound sand.OldeSkool, NavigatorWife, God prefers Diesels and 3 others Thank this. -
This brings up a question I was wondering about , does anyone make a wireless camera with enough range that could be used for stuff like this ,
Stick it on the side or rear of the trailer and use it to back in ? -
I had something similar to this happen a while back.
I was backing straight past the nose of another truck (inside corner spots), and I had to get pretty close to his bumper to hit my spot, but he was on my left side, and I was straight so I could directly see exactly how much space I had, and I never got close.
He boiled out of his sleeper and started yelling at me, and so I stopped and walked over to him, and he was saying I had hit his truck.
So I asked where the damage was, and he pointed out a rock chip below his headlight.
Now, I had my doors chained open, so they would have hit first long before anything else got close, and the chip was far below them.
So I took a picture of the chip, him the license plate, my trailer etc.
Then I pointed out that the chip was old, had road grime in it, so he wiped it clean lol
So, I took another picture of it with his finger prints on it!
He was still saying he was certain I hit his truck, and so since I could get in trouble with my company if I was accused of an accident without following the rules, once I saw he was still accusing me, I flipped into taking care of things properly, and I demanded his insurance information and ID so I could write it up and process the claim.
For SOME reason he didn't want to, and was saying he just wanted to get paid for the damage, but I kept insisting that if there had been a wreck he needed to trade information with me right now.
I went to my truck to get my accident pack, and when I came back out he had driven away lol (as I had hoped he would )
I then called Safety and told them that I had been accused of hitting his truck, I had pictures of the supposed damage his plate, company name, his face, etc, and that when I had asked for his information, he had driven away.
So I was covered because I had attempted to do the proper procedure, and I had the evidence in case he tried claiming something later but I didn't give him anything.
And remember, in case of a wreck, both parties have to SWAP information, so never give your information out unless you have gotten his ID and insurance info, and also take pictures of everything, including the driver.
kylefitzy Thanks this. -
Maybe he really did think you scraped him and wanted a name along with the company...who knows. However it’s generally not very hard to tell an old scratch on a trailer from one that happened 5 minutes ago, so let’s make sure we aren’t trying to BS the peanut gallery here.OldeSkool Thanks this. -
Truckers need to start filming everything they do. I would set up a live stream cell phone camera at the dock showing your trailer approaching. If you have a second phone you can tune into your own live stream and see what the first camera sees as your trailer is backing up to the dock. The huge bonus of all this is that it is all preserved in the cloud, no need for concern about a corrupted or maxed out SD card,
TripleSix Thanks this. -
I had my DL and my vehicle registered to a state park campground, for years.TokyoJoe Thanks this. -
Today marks a week without hearing anything from anyone, going to just let it go. I doubt the guy had a safety dept to report to, he had very poor equipment quite possibly an O/O Cali driver. He was also from another country, probably Nigeria. I don't mean to offend anyone by mentioning his race, but it may be important to this situation.
He seemed genuine, he also didn't take any photos of his trailer or my trailer, just a photo of my ID. Which I can only imagine puts him down a few pegs on trying to prove anything on his own?
The place I picked up from likely didn't have dock cameras, and if they did, my case would most likely be closed and I'm safe and glad it was recorded. If my safety dept calls about this, I'll ask to see the footage in the dock before they want to blame me for anything.
Thanks for all the help, lesson learned, never give out more information than you need and try to defend yourself as much as possible. I was working as a Cable Guy 5 months ago installing satellites on homes, not driving a semi-truck. Crazy lifestyle change and I will forever be learning from this mistake.Last edited: Apr 14, 2021
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