Accident on my third day driving!

I was in a similar situation as you when I started. I had just finished CDL school and got hired. I spent 5 days with another driver just to get the hang of what the company wanted from me while driving. Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't do something similar.
That first month was brutal! I felt overwhelmed and alone. I was determine to get thru though and did everything at my own pace. I was late for 3 of my first 5 deliveries, but I got there.

If you want to drive, your going to have to dig deep and tell yourself, ''I know I can do this''. I would not be surprised to see you driving for someone.
I think 5 days is ridiculous, unless you have at least 6 months under your belt. Heck, you need 5 days just to figure out how the company works, IMHO.

 

I certainly don't think truckin is for every body. There are some "grads" that have no business on the road and are dangerous. Inexperience doesn't make them dangerous not caring does. In your case I would say you gotta throw your riggin back on the horse that throwed you. The fact that your tore up over shows you have the want to that is important to making it. All that happened is you got frustrated by a little something and it snow balled from there. 18 years and in the right circumstance it can happen to me so don't let it get to you. Beat on doors blow up the phones of every company you can find somebody will take you. Some need more training than others but even what training CDL schools give and 5 days is not enough in my opinion for anybody that wasn't raised in a truck. Surely any decent safety dept can see that. Heck I have seen good hands have a hiccup the first week on the job. I don't think that was reason to let you go

 

There is not a one of us who hasn't screwed up at one time (or several,) or another. Your company probably had to fire you, due to their insurance. Doesn't necessarily mean you can't get hired by another company. But if you don't keep trying, you will never be hired.

You made a mistake. You hopefully learned from it, you have no problem in admitting you made a mistake, (yeah, you would be surprised at the number of idiots who will swear then did nothing "wrong" after hitting something. . .) nor in admitting to needing more training. Now it is time to stop beating yourself up over something you can't change, and try to get back into the game, if that is what you really want to do.

Good luck to you!

 

screams i feel ya on the accident, howerver find a good company tell them what happend( be honest) and se if you can get a trainer for 4-6 weeks not sure what company X put on your DAC (you can get a copy) but it sounds like they let you go to early. get up dust your self off and give it a shot

 

The trailer tandems grabbed it as I was making a right turn. I had trouble seeing the pole in the dark, but there was not traffic there and I was on a side road and could have stopped and gotten out, probably even backed up safely even though that's considered a no-no.

I'd had unexpected difficulty hooking with the heavy trailer, also had never moved tandems before so that took a while, in fact everything was taking long because I was so inexperienced. I was almost out of hours (I could have edited some of the non driving hours but forgot this), was not allowed to park at that particular shipper, had just picked up a heavy load with the tandems all the way back (shipper's requirement), had to get off their property because they were closing. Was trying to find a place to get off the road and move tandems and use QUALCOMM to contact night dispatch since I didn't have cellphone reception there and I didn't know where to park or what to do.

Missed the easy entrance to a store parking lot, tried to get in the side entrance. I had 12 minutes left of drive time, didn't know the area and was freaking out.

So my panic and exhaustion were due to inexperience, poor trip planning, and inability to get advice. In turn the accident was due to panic and exhaustion.

 

it has happend to me too , i was beating myself up for a few days of it too.

 

Easy there screams...Your not done if you chose not to be. On my first day of training I got 2 tickets for $1000.00 . One for failure to obey a truck route sign and an overweight. After an hour of driving my trainer tells me to follow the purple line on the GPS than hops in the sleeper and closes the curtain. On the way up Teton Pass "The no trucks over 45000lbs" was so caked with blowing snow I couldn't read it. Long story short here, don't trust anything or anyone too much. 2 weeks later I rubbed a trlr next to me thinking the light I saw was between my trlr and the other. It was between my trlr and my trlr door.
That was 2 years ago and I've been accident, incident and ticket free ever since. I willing to bet dimes to dollars you'll GOAL, get out and look, a whole lot the remainder of your driving career.

The best thing you can do IF you go with a OTR company is find one that does side by side training.

With "team driving training" each driver drives WHILE the other sleeps.

With "side by side training" The trainee drives while the TRAINER is in the passenger seat and coaches the trainee.

"team driving training" takes 3-5 months for trainee to solo out.

"side by side training" takes 3-5 weeks for trainee to solo out.

There I said it again.

Hang in there screams, you were not properly trained. A good mentor is priceless. Definitely keep looking.

 

Since you didn't get a ticket I would think that would make it easier to get on with another carrier. All that may show is a preventable accident. FWIW this industry needs some quality hands to replace some old timers, sounds like in time you may be one. We have too many of the know it all here for a check don't care who's family is on the road people we can stand.

 

scream if you do need a workd or 2 of encougment PM me and i wil help were i can

 

Oh, I was thinking when you said you hit a pole, that you ran off the road and slammed into it head on. Although any accident is not a good thing, a turning accident like that is something that a lot of guys have done and they are still trucking.

My first and only accident was in similar circumstances. I was in Chicago, IL checking in at a shipper. It was 11pm, and I had 3 minutes of driving time left. I had driven all of my 11. I was so tired. It was very dark there, and my only goal was to drop my empty trailer, pick up the loaded one, and head to the lot next door where the overnight parking was.

Had no problem dropping the empty, but when I went for the loaded one is where it all went out the window. I was unaware at this point that it was possible to crank the landing gear on a trailer up so high that the kingpin could slide right over the 5th wheel - it was a situation that just never came up in my 4 weeks of training, and I really didn't think they could go that high.

Like an idiot, I didn't get out and check. Backed under the trailer and CRUNCH. Slammed the reefer unit right into the tractor. Broke the door on the unit, and caved in the entire back panel on the tractor.

16 months and a nice long ######## later and I'm still here, making .42 a mile. Mistakes do happen. I know here at Maverick, they have a reasonably high tolerance for honest mistakes, but a VERY low tolerance for sheer stupidity.

Here, your accident would be considered a minor incident primarily caused by lack of training. And of course, if you needed more training, you would get it.

Our temp control division hires out of PA, we're up there regularly. Wouldn't hurt to give Recruiting here a call. Be honest about everything that happened, and they'll be honest with you right back.

Good luck, and don't give up.