KOCH TRUCKING

Forget the crazy lady. You had 3 accidents/incidents within what seems to be a short period of time. You have admitted that you did all three things they let you go for. It has nothing to do with "right to work." You have established a pattern and they let you go because of that. In my case, if that had been a live power line instead of a neutral line, I could be dead. Evidently, I got out of the truck while in contact with the line. The point is that sometimes you need to quit looking at everyone else and start looking at yourself. You hit a truck parked in a parking space, a trailer in a drop yard, messed up a bumper and ran over a fire hydrant. It seems like you may need to slow down, watch your mirrors better and stop before you hit something. You say you have 30 years of driving? Maybe you should follow my example and reevaluate your physical and mental driving skills.

Not everyone can drive until they are 100. I'm not trying to point fingers, or act holier than thou. I'm saying these lapses are a warning, don't be that guy that runs into stopped traffic because you didn't realize everyone is stopped. You ran over a fire hydrant, but what if that had been a pedestrian? What if that had been a power pole and you brought the whole thing down, now you have live power lines all over the ground. Be honest with yourself and humble enough to admit you need to make changes.

 

I'm sure Krielkamp would have you.

 

In my case, I'm admitting that I shouldn't be driving and I'm working with the state rehabilitative ser vices about what will be next. To keep my CDL I have had to cheat the vision test on my physical since 2017. When I went in to renew my license I couldn't see anything in their vision machine for my right eye and I had no peripheral vision in my right eye. The examiner just went ahead and wrote 20/40, put a mirror restriction on my license, took my picture and the state mailed me my new license. In the past year, I've been surprised by pedestrians and vehicles on my right side that I couldn't see and almost ran into a string of vehicles on the interstate that had come to a sudden stop and I didn't realize it.

What I'm trying to point out is that if you've been driving for a long time and suddenly you have several similar type incidents within a short period of time, something is going on and you need to deal with it. Maybe it's not the trucker thing to do, but it is the responsible thing. Do you want to risk killing someone and going to prison? I'm not defending trucking companies, I have no idea if Koch is good, or bad, I'm saying let these incidents be a warning.

 

I drove with them for a while years ago .... wasn't a good fit.
They backseat drove us down to the minute.
At the time the people were decent but in the end it was
just too much fatigue constantly being hammered by their clock .
( Where i work now we are not forced dispatch , much easier gig )

 

Thanks for realizing something was wrong and taking yourself off the road. That took some guts.
Let us know how things work out for you, okay?

 

My wife died unexpectedly back in March of last year. To realize how close I came to joining her is scary. More than that, it means my daughter who is only 19 and a sophomore in college could have lost both parents in less than a year. As depressed as I am, I think I would rather be poor and unemployed than dead and spend eternity realizing what I had done to our daughter.

Didn't mean to hijack the thread, but sometimes we need to look at what has led to our circumstances and take charge of our own lives. There are a lot of bad trucking companies out there, but they aren't to blame for everything bad in our lives. BTW, the company that let me go was actually pretty good and I wish I was still there.

 

One foot in front of the other. Sorry to hear about that. That has to be a hard pill to swallow. You ever think of going dispatcher, agent or broker? You can still be in transportation, make money, utilize your contacts maybe develop leverage with existing customers. You could hire your daughter to dispatch. Just a thought. I didn't get hired into my major. Went into transportation never looked back. Went from ops to dispatch to brokerage. Not everyone cottons to it but it's a great industry to work in and if your personality matches you can have a ton of fun. It sounds like you would be an ideal agent and you would have a parachute for your girl.