Not at fault accident

No you aren't screwed . I have 3 not at fault accidents on my record. 2 of them being the exact scenario you described.. one of them happened to me last year on my birthday. have never had a problem getting hired... it's trucking #### happens. Most any hiring manager that has been around the industry for a couple years understands that. They may ask what happened in an interview , just tell them the truth. Not a huge deal

 

I seriously doubt it'll stop you from getting a local job. Insurance for local carriers is a lot more lenient vs interstate transportation.

 

What should you do? Keep moving forward, pursue that local job, get paid for all your time, and get your life back.

 

You should be ok, but don't lie if an application asks "have you had an accident?" The answer is "Yes, I was hit by another driver and it was classified as not at fault." Keep a copy of that report for YOU for the rest of your career.

 

This just happened to me a week ago on Saturday morning in Ohio. You know what caused it? She didn't even see the empty lowboy trailer when she went to do a panic lane change to go diving for the exit off-ramp. I could tell that by how hard she bounced her SUV off the driver side of the trailer. I've been driving since 2011 and nothing like that had ever happened while minding my own business in the slow lane so I was like WTF...are you kidding me? She was a moron with either a meth or fentanyl habit I could tell immediately, so there you go...sometimes some loser comes along and ruins your day. She was found at fault and cited but I still get to explain this for the next 3-5 years to anybody who asks, so not real happy about that. But those empty low profile trailers...people wont see them sometimes as hard as that is to believe.

 

I'd say you've managed to keep you nose pretty clean for a new guy. The only one that really suggests a lack of spatial awareness or judgement (get out and look?) would be the backing incident. Everybody has a couple of those in the first year or two. Sometimes guy's have their ego get in the way also. All the other super truckers will be laughing if they see me getting out to look.

 

Seems like ever since covid people's driving has gone to the toilet. Even worse than it already was. Don't know what happened . Must've been something in those vaccines that has long term effects on motor skills.