Any Chance?

My wife and I were driving team with SRT. We had a god record withthem. They told us on a review that we were 100% on time delivery. We did have a couple minor incidents, but still got our safety bonuses.

Then one day on US25/70 10 miles into TN from NC, we had a brake fire. It was not in cell range for any service. QUalcom messages to the company did not help. Flagging down motorists resulted in a fire dept arriving an hour later. Everything we had burned.

After 2 days in a hotel room the company terminated both of us. I was the one driving and my wife was sleeping. We were given no reason. When applying for other jobs, we learned we were both terminated for "misconduct". We were on route and the company had said it was an equipment failure in the truck that caused the fire.

Is there any chance a company will hire us? If so which company?

thank you for your time and consideration,
Wayne

 

Thank you. We are a husband and wife team so he she fits.

 

Thank you. I did call them today. They were very nice to us on the phone. They did want a little more experience than we had. However they suggested someplace to drive for a few months to get the experience they want. We will follow up on that.

Wayne

 

We did do that for my wife. I took photos on my cell phone for the company. Although since they never talked to me to find out what happened, they were never used. They do show that the fire started going up a mountain, not down under braking. That along with the police report has been sent to the dac along with a recording of what happened that I made 2 days after the event.

The good news is that we bo9th have orientation with a a local company. It will be driving day cabs hauling bulk within 300 miles of home. Next summer we can apply at Henderson as suggested to us above. The solo driving will probably be good for us in the end. Although we look forward to being OTR again.

Thank you to everyone who gave us suggestions and help.

Wayne

 

I agree about the route. But, that was the route given us. I even asked if I could get onh 40 when we crossed it in NC and was told no, to stay on the assigned route. Being a fairly new driver, I was not in a positionto argue with them.

I know the brakes could heat up over the mountains in NC. I do not know if they did or not. I do know I stopped for 15 minutes in Hot Springs, NC about 12 miles before the fire. I did this because it had been much down hill braking through NC. Once in TN, the downhil and turns were not as severe. There was a mild downhill into Del Rio, that did not require much braking. When I stopped in Hot Springs, SC, I checked the brake temp with my laser thermometer I use to check tire temps. The brakes were not unduly hot then. We had 27 hours to go 600 miles and were not pushing it at all. It was a pretty drive and I was taking my time enjoying it.

As for what happened with the brakes, I do not know. Nor does the company know. Being selfinsured there was no reason to look at the truck nor even to talk to me and see what happened. Which is part of my fustration. I have 7 months experience driving. I may have made a mistake. There is much I do not know. I have never been with an experienced driver for training. If I did something wrong, I would like to know what. I do want to learn from this experience. The truck was sold the day after the fire and picked up the 2nd day after the fire - about the same time they decided to terminate us. I do have a movie of the truck, the brakes on both side, etc. At one time the company told us it was a mechanical failure. This was told to them and myself by the people who towed the truck in. However, this was told us the next day before information about the fire was restricted and no one we were able to talk to was allowed to discuss it. The problem was, that less than 2 weeks before, it had passed the annual inspection preformed by the shop. Although after passing that it needed further repair before it would pass a pretrip and be safe to drive. There are some problems in the shop which was my only complaint with them. No one wants to dig into that too far. I do know that previuosly work in the shop on our truck occurred during a shift change. This involved a job started was not finished. I am not sure what was not tightened or left undone, but we were putting a gallon of oil in every 500 to 1000 miles until we got back there. Also, they were unable to fix 6th gear so I was doing a 5th to 7th shift. I initially though the smoke may have bene an engine problem since the light would come on and it would shut off the cruise (which I was not using that day). This had been ahppening a few weeks and the shop was unable to fix that. Regardless, the truck was gone 2 days later and no one will ever know what happened. I will not give my personal opinions about this.

Perhaps if I had dropped the trailer and taken off downthe road, the load would have been saved. I do not know when I would have been able to pull over again and quite frankly did not think of that. I did not it would take 40 minutes before the call got into the first fire dept. If there had not been that delay, the trailer and load would have been OK. I also drove awhile with the smoke. There was no place to pull off and I did not want to stop in the road with those blind curves. No one has ever commented on that decision either. Although the trooper who came out said I did the right thing, he is not a driver. I have never had any training about what to do in a fire. I did not know how far I would have to go to get cell phone coverage. I thought that notifying the company through the qualcom, they could call a fire dept. I was worng about that. The flames did not start until I stopped. Maybe I should have dropped my wife by the road and then kept on driving. I did think of that, but though it had a chance of causing an accident by driving a truck with smoke pouring out. Right or wrong, my decision was too get off the road and out of the flow of traffic as soon as I could.

I am open and desire any comments about what I should have done and mistakes made. I want to learn anything that may be learned from this experience.

Thank you for your comments.

Wayne