Weather decision

If in doubt don't do it. You and you only are the captain of your ship.

 

Don't never allow anyone to intimidate you in doing something that you are not comfortable with. And never allow yourself to be compared with another person, like "well so and so did it". God made only one of you and just because someone else did something doesn't mean that you have to. Dispatchers are famous for intimidation and throwing it out that this or that driver did it. Don't fall for this type of coercion.

 

If you feel unsafe park it and if there is a lot of window time on your load,dispatch won't say much.But if its a time sensitive load,they may get upset and use,the other drivers are driving in it line but they'll get over it.Thing to do is look at the radar from point A to B and go as far as you possibly can without a lot of breaks so incase you do run info bad weather dispatch needs to find a swap.

 

When necessary use text messaging and the qualcomm to say you feel it is unsafe to move the truck. That way when dispatch tells you to get moving you have it in writing.

 

I shut down one day with less than a years experience, at the steel city in brazil IN... indiana had not plowed very well, and it was slick. Plan was to stop, and wait for the sun to do some good, as it was 8am, and I had already rolled 200 miles. got called by meat dispatch asking why I was not rolling as the load had to get delivered. Said I felt unsafe at this time, and was waiting for the major pile up in Indianapolis to clear. Got told I ad to roll, I refused, hung up and called safety...

Safety was glad I had shut down, as one of our trucks was involved in the pile up... and they wanted nobody on the roads in indiana. Meat dispatch tried to send another truck to come get my load, but he never made it.

I took an 8 hour break, rolled another 240 miles, had to wait for another wreck, took a 2 hour break, and delivered the load 4 hours late in Carlisle PA... and the warehouse was happy to see me.

Never let a desk jockey tell you it is safe to drive.

 

Here is the thing. You cannot refuse to drive. You are a paid person whose job it IS to drive. A better way to maybe give yourself some leeway or breathing room from the hot breath at dispatch, is to at least try to drive. Now of course, if you are buried in the parking lot at the truck stop, you cannot move.

BUT, if you are at home watching the weather channel and they say snow tomorrow, and you got say about 3 to 8 hours of drive time BEFORE the snow starts, then you had better get going.

If you are sitting in your truck, watching your dish satellite tv, or watching your laptop weather app, and it says snow coming in 2 days and you stay there, because you feel unsafe to drive 2 days from now, consider yourself fired.

One has to at least "give it a try", this way you can honestly say you cannot go any further, and HAVE to park it.

The job of driving is not all black and white. There will always be "shades of gray", and how you handle it will determine your future. If you refuse to drive, in every instance of announced snow coming, you will indeed be "punished" by not getting any loads, miles, bonuses, etc,etc. They can and WILL MAKE you quit, then they can DAC you for refusing to work!

Don't play that dangerous game. At least try to drive, before you call it impossible to continue.

 

The only difference between a new driver with common sense, and a "old hand" with common sense........... is a few facial wrinkles. New drivers become "old hands" by not laying the truck over, or hurting themselves and other people.

 

better to be safe than dead or injured, ,just remember if a company fires you for not driving after you tell them that you feel it is unsafe you really did not want to work for them anyway ,,thousands of other driving jobs out there, the only way to stop bad dispatchers from trying to force you to driver in unsafe conditions is to tell everyone who the company is and if they fire you file a complaint with the DOT

Last winter in Wyoming, 5 swift trucks were in single vehicle roll over accidents in a 4 hours period all with in a 100 miles of each other.