Backing incident. Utterly sick with myself.

A Good company will understand, Take it easy man. Things happen, 4 wheelers havent a clue, and OOIDA is no help. Not seen them give one class inside a DMV on how to operate around trucks. So you OOIDA fans keep giving your money to them so they can keep buying cheese puffs and red bulls for lunch!

 

Who are you driving for?

 

Did you really "do it"? Is there a chance the 4-wheeler pulled into your backing path... more or less intentionally? It's pretty rare for a rookie known to be safety conscious to be fired for a bump, it's more or less expected. Many if not most times those rookies turn out to be among the best drivers, because they learn from their early mistake.

I was practicing my backing once, before I went to school. Some poor family carrier with 10 trucks agreed to help me get my CDL and let me drive for them. I got out to look, once of many times. THAT time some nitwit parked his POV right next to the R side of my tractor. I didn't bother to look, I KNEW there was nothing there, I'd been practicing for an hour. I swung right into it, and I did a lot more than $1500 in damage.

 

BS in the eyes of the law and insurance companies if you have an accident while backing it is your fault under any and all circumstances.

 

It sucks, esp for someone just starting out. Unfortunately I'm sure your company will say it was a preventable backing accident.

 

Well the good thing it is not a DOT/CSA issue. This is between the 3 of you for the most part, it is low enough in value the other trucking companies wont make an issue out of it either. Good Luck.

 

it wouldn't have mattered if he honked teh horn. idiots do that crap ALL THE TIME.

as for the flashers. hence the keyword, IDIOTS.

it's always your fault for improperly looking. it's never the idiots fault.

 

Don't sweat too much. Your safety guy is following procedures. They will want to do an investigation of their own. More than likely they will want you to submit for a drug test, that is most companies policy involving any kind of accident. As far as the cops telling you if you are wrong or not is hard to say. If this happened on Thermokings property, it is private property and the car had no business being behind you. If it was a truck stop that does this service, the same thing applies. Its private property. Do what you can to make sure that all your I's are doted and T's crossed. Safety should work with you if they feel that was a non preventable accident. At the moment the cops made it sound preventable which in most cases it is. Its just hard to make a correct opinion because none of us were there. Let us know what happens and be safe.

 

In the eyes of a safety man every accident is preventable, they will find a circumstance that had it been different you would not have had the accident even if they have to go back as far as well if your mom and dad had not had you, then you would have not had an accident in our truck.

Like some of the guys have said don't sweet it, we have all done worse over the years and were still out here.