I broke a mirror

Oh God, Reddit's leaking.

 

A while back a driver for a top 25 MEGA was directed to his safety dept. When in the office was asked a simple question about doing damage at a drop yard in Tenn. The driver denied doing damage. The driver had hit the driverside of a nearly new Tractor. Took out the mirror as well as busting most of the left side of the tractor. He did this when attempting to finish a drop and hook. Even after being given a 2nd chance to come clean the driver still denied doing anything. Well, it seems there was a go-pro camera recording the whole event from the dash of a 3rd tractor while the driver was in the sleeper. That video found its way to safety. The safety critter that told me this was the person that fired that driver on the spot. This person told me that they are marking the driver as NOT eligible for rehire. This means when another carrier sees this they will dig deeper and see the note of the reason.

I said this one time a while back and will repeat it again here. When you are in a terminal, a customer's place of business EVEN an out-of-the-way drop yard ASSUME your actions are being recorded by cameras. This is why you should report the damage. Things like mirrors and windshields in general are not considered an accident. About a year before I retired I was not paying attention and slid under a trailer and my 5th wheel missed the kingpin. The reefer hit the back of my tractor as well as I damaged my QC antenna. I never noticed the QC damage and just color-matched the scratched paint and went on and never reported the event. That was until I had my next PM. A mechanic noticed the QC was damaged. Then he looked at the tractor and asked me about it. Since I was at my home terminal I walked over to safety. Before I did I got my logbook and found the log for that day. I explained what happened, accepted the lecture about being careful when hooking up, and was told it was considered an incident that will stay within the company. To this day I am greatly embarrassed I did that.

 

Very possible that I am mistaken.

 

The difference is answering a question or creating an answer in search of a question.

 

Here is what several people are missing when giving responses within this thread:

A minor incident as described by OP is not a concern for seeking a position with another company. It's obvious that several members posting here think it should be a concern. As far as whether it should or shouldn't be a concern, I believe that is debate for a different thread. It's simply not applicable here, as much as some people want it to be.

 

There is plenty of business owners who would do the same as me... have you ever owned a truck and been hit by some careless mega company driver that could care less about tearing up anybody else's equipment? Some of us do all our own work on our trucks.

 

He wont be hired by any company with values with careless actions on his record..

 

Let it fricking go. Several experienced drivers have already said "don't worry about it." You keep going on with this IF...IF... stuff. If "if"s and "but"s were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas. Happy Sunday to you and hopefully you find another thread.

 

It won't be on his record. Take care and have a wonderful day.

 

Hitting someone's mirror is a preventable accident...if there was more accountability and punishments for tearing up trucks, it wouldnt happen.