One accident.

I get that but I am letting you know how companies think... Keep that in mind when speaking to them tell them what they want to hear

 

Drivers are a dime a bakers dozen nowadays. It's not difficult to pick a candidate to hire over one who has some experience but a wreck.

Ive taken cars out in my time and unfortunately they had people inside of them, who then went to the courthouse. And that as they say is that. Not quite. One was thrown out and laughed at because he was a late employee who penetrated a protected loading dock/shipping area for being late. He deliberately stops under my jacked trailer waiting for me to proceed to push his vehicle more with the tractor aft drive set. Which was what happened. So that took care of lawsuit of now unemployed worker.

Lawsuit number two was a little more of a threat back in my 20's I took out a car near the National Cathedral on the S's on 495 during a ill timed lane change at the height of rush one fine monday morning. Needless to say the entire situation coming to that onramp where granny come on three lanes to my right and two to the left became a problem when I took granny out in the second inside right lane where she managed to make it that far beyond the onramp into the third S curve. Of all the cars that were bumper to bumper at 40 mph that hour it had to be her.

Anyhow.

I wrote the Judge in charge of the case and told him that working a gas station at minimum wage living with parents in the so called basement at that point in life because no one with a 18 wheeler will hire me on for that one accident and a number of other hot tickets that had accumulated to that point in time. There was essentially nothing you can do to get the preventable blood out of a dutch turlip which had then no value whatsoever. I could work 50 years in that dead end job and it will not come close to what this lady could expect to see in her remaining lifespan (She was close to 80 of all things....) So it was a insurance settle ment that had to happen for her crappy 4 door chevy replacement.

And so it was. Insurance settled and made sure that I was not hireable for 3 years into the future at a minimum. At that point a friend of mine asked if I wanted to run a dump truck. I told him forget it my DAC would eat me alive and his insurance on me would be prohibitive. He laughed and said there is no DAC he is a one man with a farm, paving and three trucks. As it turned out that was one of the best moves I made in life being able to solve a very big problem of being employ-ability. I consider myself lucky. Lawsuits and all.

I would not be so fast to pick on DAC too much. I would reinforce the current thought that if you are new to trucking and want to take a shot at making a living doing a 18 wheeler, you might as well understand if you ever take a car out, with people inside of that car it will be your last day driving a 18 wheeler in this life span.

 

Oh. That's different then.

That changes my thinking a little bit. Anything other than a Felony you can pretty much write off as a get out of jail free card prior to your CDL days. Everything that happens with that CDL in your pocket is much, much more important now. Everything that happened prior to your CDL days is a different life time, literally history as long it's not a convicted felon on your record.

Ive done quite a bit with personal vehicles before I had a CDL and also during my CDL days (CDL did not get implemented until April of 1994 for me when I had to convert my class A to a CDL along with millions of other truckers, many of whom who chose to go work on the detriot factory line for 30 a hour rather than submit to increased rules and regulations related to drug and alcohol work. Before my CDL trucking that year, it was very common to have a 6 pack or a couple of bottles in the cab of that 18 wheeler against bad roads. As long you did not drink too fast and got too smashed to keep it between the lines. That would be the one time I would say driving while... drinking was not a problem with a freaking 18 wheeler back then. It was part of the culture.

Many young people cannot imagine it today, horrifying. That was one example of change.

 

You made a mistake and you've admitted that, but the way you explained above ^^ seems to indicate that you are passing the blame to the other driver for losing control when you were the one merging. But it's not the end of the world, there are companies out there who will give you a shot. Maybe @Chinatown can help you on finding a company.

 

Sorry I was settling down, had to taste the popcorn before typing my thought.

 

But you said you've been driving for 10 or 20 years, we all thought that was truck driving.