2 preventable Accidents on Trainer’s truck

May I ask who you re training with?

My 2nd question is where was your trainer when all of this happened? As a trainer, it is his or her job to train you properly and help you avoid these type of situations.

When you scraped the pole, did you do any damage to your truck or trailer? You did the right thing by reporting it. I hope you took pics too. Because some places may say no big deal, and once you leave the scene, they may call raising hell about you scraping the pole.

I would not say that you re unemployable, but 2 incidents in a short time may throw red flags at a few companies.

I hope you learn a valuable lesson, if in doubt about anything, stop, get out and look and assess the situation

 

That 2nd thing u did, getting stuck in mud, isn’t an accident. The 1st one may be called an “incident” if their was damage. Was there damage on your truck? The incident may find its way to your DAC report, which is a private company that some employers use during recruitment and new hires. To me this doesn’t sound bad.

 

I wonder about this myself, a trainer is supposed to be there watching, not sleeping in the sleeper.

 

Meh... Get it out of your system now while training and sharing a truck. Some people those type infractions are what it takes to learn things... If they boot you, you'll get offered a job somewhere from someone.
This industry is in desperate need for drivers and obviously qualified trainers.

 

I had a guy driving with me got stuck in someone's lawn and had to be towed out from trying to turn too wide.

He was fine, eventually moved on found himself a local job somewhere. That way he can run over stuff on a daily basis.

You should have seen that guys driving man... Rofl. He would jump just about any curb regardless and be totally fine with it. He would be sitting there talking to me about getting stuck. I'd look in the rear mirror and the trailer is jumping yet another curb and running bushes over. SMH

Im no expert but I haven't hit anything yet and have made some hard turns. My advise that worked for me is to just take every turn as wide as you can regardless as long as it's safe to do so. Watch your Tandems and also consider tandem placement. Over time you get a feel for how much room you will need.

Scan the area before every turn and note obstacles. It gets easier with time. Also try to look ahead, if it's a single lane turn or if you have doubts, just split the lane.

Dont uturn. Ive done it a couple times if I had 4 wide open lanes in the middle of the night. But it's a rare exception. It sucks but find a route around the block or two or three.

 

You will be okay. No more u turns though. Those can be fatal.