Can you be a really good truck driver and still be bad?

Unless there is a "right number of X" there cannot be a shortage of X. Since every inmate in a prison is assigned to be in that prison, there can be a shortage if someone escapes. Since people are not assigned by a Housing Czar to live in an apartment building there cannot be a shortage of apartment dwellers. The apartment manager may have a desire to have every apartment filled with the same number of people as there are bedrooms in the building, but it's a desire not a quota. The apartment building owners may have a desire that 90% of the apartments produce rents every month so the owners make a sufficient profit, but they simply have a desire to reach some goal.

There is no Job Czar assigning people to certain jobs, like truck driver. People chose to enter or leave every job as they decide makes sense to them. If a fisherman sat at home with his tackle box in the garage can he argue there is a fish shortage? If he said there is a fish shortage, is there a fish shortage or are there as many fish on the dinner plate of the fisherman as conditions produced. Who is to say "fish shortage" is correct versus "stop wishing for too much"? If you want fish, fish better. If you want free fish, run for office.

 

"If I wasn't such a good driver, I could have killed someone when I drove on the sidewalk, but I didn't."

 

It's definitely not impossible, but I'd be surprised if it did. The game is so different than it was even in the early 2000s

 

Which person is responsible for dictating how many truck drivers are in the industry?

 

Rare events are always a surprise. It was surprising when the 1972 Dolphins went undefeated.

 

Well ... to the OP, sh***** happens, don't dwell on it and move on. This is what I tell my drivers. A gator in the road is sometimes unavoidable and causes a lot of damage. My oldest kid can attest to the damage to her car when someone hit one and it flew up and caused $4k worth of damage to her new car.

Is it fair?

Life isn't fair.

No one driver, no matter how good they appear to be are immuned.

Got to tell you too OP, the safety department is only doing what they have to do, mine would have to make an attempt to prevent this in the future with a wink in order to satisfy the insurance company, which is our biggest and your biggest problem.

As Reo pointed out in his post -

I look forward to robots for the same reason he pointed out - while there are good drivers out there, many of them in fleets that appreciate them, they move on to other things like retirement and those who replace them are not even close to having 60% of the same work ethic as the ones they replace. I have three who are retiring at the end of the year, they will not be replaced, I will terminate the contract because I gave up trying to find three drivers for a specific job with specific skills, the ability/willingness to work with the customer and a good attitude. The ones I interviewed had one of the three qualities I need for the job. It isn't even a matter of money, the qualities are not there.

 

I supervise college students at my part-time job. WE ARE ALL DOOMED. Everyone needs to record now how they feel about regular electricity, water, traffic lights working, refrigeration, and anything else we took for granted for the last 50 years. It's coming to an end soon. As society is run by today's 20-30s in future we will dream about the olden days when we had electricity for days without interruption. We had water out of the faucet anytime we wanted. Airliners weren't crashing into each other weekly. If one of them burst into flames they wouldn't do anything until they updated all of their social media accounts, their UberEats order arrived, etc. We will one day look like Dresden Germany on VE Day. Who will install roofs on houses, lay down asphalt for roads, etc? Who will hire the video game college majors when AI produces video games before these people can complete their degree?

 

LOL...It's that "driver shortage" thing again. I mean, all I want is a guy, or gal, who can run an rgn off road, do their own loading and unloading...mostly dozers and excavators with the occasional rice harvester...and run in and out of the big city...San Francisco, Sacramento etc. when our work takes us down there.
Being carded for wildland fire work is also a major plus.
They should also have some tanker experience, enough to load or unload fuel. Off road tanker experience is a plus, as is going to the Bay Area to load. Full carding at all refineries is another plus.
If there's no rgn work or tankers they should be willing to fill in on logging truck, rock truck, water truck, or drive pilot car as needed. If they're working off road in the woods they should be able to change tires by hand and do minor mechanical chores. Being self directed is necessary.
What I'm describing here is an over view of the last couple of drivers that retired from here. They could do anything and they did it well. There's definitely a shortage of drivers like that.
I guess I just resent having to hire three drivers to replace one.

 

Winner. The difference between a good fighter and a great fighter is that the greats can make needed adjustments DURING the fight. Some times, they make the adjustments after being knocked on the floor.

You know what you call a driver who is unable to make adjustments and has a clean record? Fair weather driver.