Werner Enterprises - Chargeable Accidents?

Dollar General; resign and go home. Start over.

 

You're employable. Pictures wont' help. Werner knows exactly what they're doing putting inexperienced drivers on that account.
One driver on here has 4 of those incidents on his DAC from Werner Dollar General and he had no trouble finding a new job.
May not be exactly what you want, but it's a paycheck.

 

Werner is like a lot of these driver mills. The 'trainer' (oftentimes a 6mo rookie) is expected to teach you how to drive AND drive themselves. If your 'trainer' was doing their job, you wouldn't have gone into the ditch.

 

There have been times Ive trapped myself on those think roads deep in the woods.

ONCE IN A WHILE I just sit. Cars flow around. Swallow my pride and call the local law to help corral them and get me out of there.

SOMETIMES directions fail. You find a fire hall locally and they will fall over themselves to HELP you. Its embarrasing but they WILL help you when they see your 18 wheeler blocking three bays to learn which way to go now.

Many drivers are eliminated from the industry before they understand they are eliminated. And so 50 more fill orientation to replace them every week. It will never change.

Its MUCH MUCH harder to replace a 747 Pilot and crew than it is to just plop any old CDL driver into that seat. Its not rocket science.

 

Well Driver there comes a point in time if you want to be a steering wheel holder or a professional driver and trust me and every veteran driver on this sight there is a difference, ole boy sitting in the seat acting as a trainer is a steering wheel holder not a trainer, I was fortunate to have a #### good trainer and to this day I still use some of the knowledge he bestowed upon me. When in doubt check it out!

 

Ok this is morning coffee school.

Now that all the drama and excitement has passed and you are actually writing as someone who has a choice to make. Several choices.

1- I think you are anxious to get past this, thats ok. But lessons are piling up already.

2- Your trainer cannot be bothered to give a *&^% well, thats bad. YOU have a choice to make. You can sink to equally bad steering wheel holding and operate in relatively medicore skills and no training etc until eliminated from the industry? Or will you try to make that tractor trailer a "Living part of you" and get Professional for one and hyper empathaic with your rig's view of the problems around it.

Example.

You look around carefully with big eyes when approaching a unknown, somewhat threatening battle problem of a dollar store in the night. You already are possibly being rear ended, blown by and so on. Its a mess. IF you were able to stop there a minute to assess the entry, ditch, curbs, bumpers, posts, TURNING RADIUS space availible to your tractor and to your trailer tandems which means evaluating if you have the room to do this. That means to actually stop there a second and THINK critically evaluating the immediate problem. If you MUST, set brakes, put on 4 ways and walk the immediate area looking for threats to your truck. Find the truck dock of that store and use the walking back to evaluate how the hell you are going to get into it. (And out)

Need I go on?

3- Trainer is ####. Fine don't bother with him. You are clearly let out on your own as a puppy among big dogs who give you a small bite here and a growl there teaching you whats what out here. Thats a really hard school. Leads me to tell you to consider a different trainer before you become irrevocably damaged as a student who has never been trained well. They say dogs go bad equally. Your writings indicate that deep down you can EVOLVE and GET professional in SPITE of everything.

Thats what I want for you. The hardest thing is learning when feeling alone with a big rig. Sometimes thats the best. But it requires the employer to accept a certain amount of costs and losses while you break stuff, get stuck, get into crazy situations and so on. You didnt know. Employers are ruthless. They dont care. VERY few have actually given a ####. THOSE are the ones you want in trucking life if you ever meet one. Ive had several. But I am damaged. I know this. Hence the stories bordering on what some call lunch counter.

Anyhow You must evolve. One example of being a part of your rig is this from my experiences.

In Indiana the company there used to post don't go into a particular town on what I recall as US231 north where car washes are being held by pretty high school girls. The idea you can swing a 18 wheeler into the lot and have 30 girls wash your rig in a few minutes putting on a wet soapy show is attractive. However, that particular town fathers apparently have had pavement damage when really heavy tractor trailers loaded with steel and god knows what pulled in.

The lot they are holding the wash is on about 2 inches thick. You cannot put a loaded 18 wheeler onto it. So the town passed a clause allowing the lawman to cite you for getting off the US 231 main road surface.

Thats part of being aware. If you know of the thin pavement somewhere you don't put a wheel onto it. Never mind the girls. So that particular incident saved most of us a world of trouble. Get a 10.00 truckwash and enjoy the company? Whoo. But not there. Not on that pavement. You follow me?

Sometimes the tractor trailer warns you in say winter ice or rains that she does not like the situation and is losing it. For whatever reason, its now on you to fix it and settle her down before YOU run her off and land in a really big median, ditch, off the mountain or whatever. You want to stay whatever you can on good pavement always.

Medicore steering wheel holders just hold on to the wheel rim as the whole thing including them sails off to get axle deep and wail and cry wondering how did they get into this mess.... You do not want this. I have actually run off pavement before in rain etc. Getting her back on was a real trick. And some big horsepower with a little luck. Bossman is NOT going to hear about this. No way.

Thats enough for this post. You will be ok, just need to clear your mind and take charge of all truck in view when you put one on getting into the drivers seat next time.