Boss forced logbook voilations, then fired me.

"But that dumb boss of mine PAID the ticket, instead of taking it to court to keep it off my record like I wanted."

Your boss can't take a parking ticket to court FOR you..and HE paid it... and you're complaining?

 

Parking tickets don't go on your CSA. If your log book ticket was issued by a DOT bear, it goes against your CSA. I guess you learned a valuable lesson as to why you don't plan your trips to the last minute. Always leave yourself 30-60 minutes at the end of the day for situations just like this.

So: three questions: WHO picked up a car without doing a COMPLETE inspection on it? Dark out? That's what they make flashlights for. Your flashlight too dim? Get a more powerful one. And LED flashlights emit a poor quality light that will not pick up scratches in some cases. Get a nice, powerful xenon light. Not your boss' fault you weren't properly equipped to do your job. The customer wants the car in the same condition as it was shipped in. You signed a statement regarding the condition of the car. Adding damage later is tantamount to falsification of shipping documents. That's not something I want to try to fight in court. It's not the secretary who will have to fight it, either. It's YOU.

WHO failed to PROPERLY plan the trip? Proper trip planning includes ensuring a contingency plan in the event of traffic, weather, construction, lack of available parking and your planned stop being torn down, burned to the ground or not there at all. It's not the state's fault Rand-McNally has outdated information. Rand-McNally is a private entity. Louisiana has no control over what is printed on those pages. That's why you use every available tool at your disposal to do this job. Anyone with a smart phone or computer with air card or wifi has the ability to look at a satellite image of where they are going. Anyone with a CB has the capability to ask the condition of the road and parking ahead. Again, not your boss' fault.

Lastly, WHO didn't take 5 minutes to complete that log book? NOT your boss.

Regardless of what the voice on the phone says, YOU have the keys to that truck and YOU make the final decision whether they are used to turn the truck off or turn the truck on. As stated above, it's your CDL. It's your job to protect it. You are very lucky your boss paid your ticket and only made you pay for damage to your freight. It is very unlikely it will show up on your DAC since your boss was such a neophyte. I'm looking at all this and consider you pretty lucky it wasn't worse.

 

Labor Boards are a waste of time and taxpayers money. If they will do anything for
you it will be at minimum wage. Best thing you can do, is small claim court, if the amount doesn't exceed the limit in your state.

And as far as reporting him to DOT, you are again wasting you time.

 

That's what you get for letting the boss "force" you to run illegal
You won't find much sympathy here for that so I'd just drop that!
As far as the pay, you have the cancled check right? did you ever sign anything that allowed him to deduct damages from your pay? If not take him to court (small claims) Check if your state allows for addional damages ($$) for bad checks you may have a case there.

 

WOW!! You didn't know that your log has to be current to the last change of duty? Going from line 3 to line 2 is a change!
Accept some responsibilty, after all IT'S ALL YOUR'S. you drove , you parked, you didn't see the sratches. It sucks but it all could've been avoided by you.

 

Wah Wah Wah, jeez driver take some accountability for your own actions already. Your boss didn't "force" you to do ANYTHING you "chose" to do it at his request. Keep in mind there's only one thing in this world you "have" to DO and i don't think i need to tell you what that is. If you'd been in an accident and god forbid hurt or killed someone do you think that boss is gonna stand up and say ya i forced him to do that it's my FAULT? Not hardly!!

 

Keep in mind that you can take somebody to court and get a judgement against them. That does not mean that you will automatically see a penny of the judgement. Getting the judgement itself is often much easier than collecting the judgement.

 

Geez, all you guys have no sympathy. Although I agree that drivers should never allow any boss to "force" you into anything that could result in a citation that will cost you YOUR money and affect YOUR record. But I do understand the desperation that people are suffering right now. I know people that have been without a job for well over a year now and don't know how they're gonna be able to feed their families the following week. And this is after resorting to applying at Walmarts and Denny's even with undergrad and technical degrees.

I'm not justifying anything because I agree with all the criticism that the drivers here have to own up to their own mistakes...but I do understand the "weakness" to giving in to the boss' demands.

Lesson to be Learned: As it has been repeated time and again throughout this forum... Don't ever let a boss/dispatcher "force" you to violate your HOS, drive faster than speed limit, carry more weight than allowed, or drive through unsafe weather/conditions. When you get a citation it might scratch the carrier's reputation, but it stabs your pocket book and scars your record for years.

 

Fundamentally, you were not 'forced'. You voluntarily did what you did on your own. Remember you are in charge of your own actions. You are in charge of your emotions. No one out there can make us do anything we don't want to do. When person A says person B made them mad, no person A made themselves mad lol.

 

Your pride might be hurt, but chock it up as experience. We all been screwed one time or another. In the game of trucking there are a bunch of people that will try to get you to do things you don't want to do.

You sign for stuff, you are the only one responsible. You run illegal, you are the only one responsible. You are overweight, you are the only one responsible. You drive a broke truck, you are the only one responsible. The only one that will take care of rileyratrod is rileyratrod.

That's why I use the phrase "trucker tough". Don't put up with others BS from the start and you won't have problems later. If you see you can't do it, stand up and tell them so. Not this "maybe" or "I'll try". You know what you can do and can't do.

Writing a check and closing the account is a felony. You're lucky you got it reopened.

Running out of hours is not an excuse to park anywhere. Rand McNally doesn't keep up with rest area's opening and closing. If it's a permanent closing, write Rand McNally and let them know. I know rest area's that been closed 20 years that are still on the map. That stuff is part of experience. Eventially you'll learn them all and all the truck stops. I've run as much as two hours over, looking for parking space and stopping six places. Do I log it? No, it goes on the next day. Louisiana isn't a state to get away with stuff. I wouldn't plan a rest area into trip plan either. Limited parking and they are always full even if it was there and open.

You are done sulking. Suck it up and go get a better job by learning the mistakes of this one.