Frozen trucker case

We don't know the whole story and how it got to that point to begin with. I knew absolutely nothing about trailer brakes freezing till my second winter. And I was local by that time. My first winter OTR was dry and warm. Most of the country had water problems when summer arrived.

 

The only law i see referenced is the one that protects us from having to drive unsafe or illegal equipment. And that doesn't apply. He drove it.

 

I read the court transcripts that were entered into for the appeal.

If he was being truthful, then he pulled off the road, set his brakes and then tried to leave. It wasn't a case where the lines were frozen, it was a case that the brakes were cold and he set them being wet.

On top of that, as mentioned, he said his fuel gauge was below empty which makes no sense at all, if he knew he would be going into weather like that, he should have not missed his fuel stop which brings up another point, he seemed to have been too concern with the delivery over getting fuel.

As mentioned, if he could drive off to a gas station - which wasn't really clear what he did there, then he could have idled the truck.

Here is the thing that really bothers me, actually two things.

1 - the fact that we can judge him because we are his peers, matters more than what Goursuch has concluded in his opinion, I think the company should not have fired him but on the other hand he put himself in this situation.

2 - those who defend his actions seem to be the ones who also excuse a lot of bad behavior that we put up with and makes us look bad and think that no matter what, the company is wrong with anything they do.

 

http://landlinemag.com/Story.aspx?StoryID=31899

http://www.livetrucking.com/company...-in-freezing-cold-ordered-to-pay-nearly-300k/

Quite the story.

 

I'm thinking new / inexperienced drivers should be given a list of do / don't do right before winter. I think it is ignorant for a company to have a driver stop for fuel and not fill up.

 

They should have built a heater out of a flower pot like @scottied67 has

 

lol--\\

 

There's so much wrong with this story.

The driver was likely pretty new and got into a bad situation by trying to follow the ridiculous fueling policies. Whether he should have known better than to get into this situation or whether he should have known how to deal with it doesn't matter now. Both TransAm and the driver share the blame with the company getting the bigger share of it IMO. Both could have done better.

All companies have policies but people are human and sometimes exceptions need to be made. Shame on TransAm for firing him for doing what he felt he needed to do to stay alive.

While company rules can be bent when exceptional circumstances dictate the law should be black and white. Though the company should have made an exception they were within their right to terminate the driver for abandoning the load.

 

There needs to be a definition for abandoning loads,. Cuz that driver went back to his load. So what if he was gone for a couple of hours. He still went back. So he really didn't abandon.

I come home loaded all the time. Trailer gets parked 3 miles from home. On a dirt road. UNSECURED. Load sits for 2 or 3 days. Anyone can steal the trailer and load. It's never happened. I've never cleared it with any of my bosses to b ring truck home. But I do. And load always got delivered.

I'm abandoning my load everytime I come home?