Should I pay for my mistake?

If an accident report was done, it will be on your CSA 2010 file, whether you pay for the damages yourself or not

 

yep, never pays to get in a hurry, especially when backing. I had a local cop in NY tell me if I didnt hurry, he was going to shoot the truck. I had to laugh-lol

 

For future reference,never let anyone impose performance standards
towards your ability.
Traffic can wait or drive thru you,attention to your task should be more important then traffic flow. Do what you need to do

 

I understand where your coming from but whatever you do, don't do this if you really like your LTL job.

What would you do if you paid for the damage and someone decided to double dip and report it to your carrier? This has happened. The carrier no matter who they are will view this as not reporting an accident and you'll be done.

These are things that happen when you run LTL P&D - just part of the job that any reputable company will understand.

 

First, don't pay out of your pockets. You made a simple mistake and you will learn from it. The company will pay and probably put a "chargable accident" on your record, but I doubt very seriously if the LTL company that you are working for even belongs to DAC and I wouldn't worry about it being on your DAC record. It happened on private property,no police report, and there will not be anything on your state DMV record about this.

 

Don't ever offer to pay for it yourself. You'd be amazed at how expensive these fibergass/ plastic parts are. Somtime you're around a dealership ask the parts dept how much for a replacement tank skirt ot the "filler panels" on a plastic front bumper are. Hold onto the counter tight so you don't fall on your butt at the answer. Yet they advertise all this plastic junk as "cost saving". BTW, once the mold is made those plastic bumpers cost about a buck to make.

Also, when you offer like that, you may just wind up paying for everything short of a new cab. Can you say "Pad the Bill"???

 

Happened to a guy I worked with. Backed into a very old car belonging to an office worker at a drop. Really, did very little damage. Made contact with the owner. She told him "forget about it, it's an old car." He STILL gave her a couple of hundred dollars out of his own pocket.

Next day, he is trying to explain his way out of this to the safety department. The gal got home and told her husband about it. He went ballistic and called the company. Threatened law suit and all sorts of good crap.

Upshot of this, the driver lost his jobs and got a "failure to report" on his DAC.

You did the right thing. Play it buy the book and let the chips fall where they may. You will likely be a whole lot better off than trying to cover something up.

 

This is the exact scenario I'm aware of happening a few years back.

I would imagine all companies preach "report all accidents no matter how small". It really is the best thing to do - the "don't worry about it" can come back and really bite you. As annoying as it is, the best thing to do is report it and take the point or whatever your company calls it. I have one here and it was minor - the damage was never even fixed but once I reported it I was able to forget about it.