Dispatch threatening drivers for not driving on ice...

Safety could not make it in. Roads were Icy, so they stayed home.

 

This is the correct mindset. Put it in writing in a manner which documents it contemporaneously, and with no ambiguity. Use specific terms like, "My best judgement tells me conditions are not safe for this weather." Email it to your dispatcher, text it, qualcomm it and take a picture of the time and date. If they mess with you at a later date, you can pat yourself on the back. Better yet, call the nearest DOT scale house and place them on notice of what your employer is doing--best course of action since this generates the most believable legal record. Like others have said, this signals your exit from the company if you do not bend to their unlawful demands. You either comply or you sue them, in this situation. Only the original poster can decide if it is worth throwing this job away for a chance to receive a larger lump sum payment at some unknown, unpredictable point in the future.

 

You can't save the world, just your self.

 

Aint that the truth.

Consider the multi gasoline tanker wreck in SE Baltimore at what I think was Biddle Street on 95 (I'll have to recheck that with the Sun archives...) anyway. When something truly bad happens like that in life, you are going to be standing there wondering what can you do, when 1000 people literally stampede over and around you wanting OUT some are burned etc. You are just in the way.

You can help a couple. But eventually it's best to just get out of the way and take care of your company truck, your cargo, your own life and interest. That's all you can be expected to do. Saving the world is not in your job description.

The last time I was on Sandstone there was a wreck in which a trapped person burned with the vehicle. The crappy little fire bottle in the side box aint gonna save him. And the screams imprint themselves on your mind. He's gone. There isnt much you can do. There are still others around the median on the ground, some of which is stone and ice which means they are hurting pretty bad if not also freezing so you can go help them a little bit until EMT gets there.

Ultimately when a herd of people decide to do something in life such as joining a company you think is bad or abusive or whatever... nothing you can do, say or tell them will convince them otherwise. Each and every one of them went there to apply of their own free will for better or worse because we are supposed to be a free country.

Follow me?

 

Wrong answer. See the entire point of this discussion is when a driver says he is not moving due to conditions.

It matters not if you approve. Whether the super truckers posting how bad ### they are approve. If the dispatcher approves.

The only relevant fact is he the driver said he is not moving his truck. Nothing else is relevant.

 

Sometimes a company that seemed to be going well can turn #####y in a hurry when a Dispatcher feels the need to make threats against a driver who decided he wont move.

In the old days there isnt anything other than to be sort of a kindergarden or sandbox recess and assert yourself with the dispatcher. It will be settled one way or the other. With you out of a job or not.

The bigger risk is that if the driver who is threatened actually moved out onto that ice and somehow killed a family of 6 in a minivan losing it all off the hill... then everything will become publicly aired in the court, far too late to bring back the dead and way beyond simple threats. Without documentation it's all noise.

Now a Employer is actually allowed to take certain limited actions in his interest to keep the business going and frankly any driver weak enough to submit to threats and going out to do something unsafe is not a professional at all.

The biggest word most newbies to the industry learn is "No." As in N-O with a period. HOW they use that word in the correct process without getting fired will ensure many happy years to come.

 

Guess it depends on the situation and the circumstances. I remember 3 company drivers parked in a rest area for an entire week. (7days) because of snow storms. They refused to chain up. The 4th driver. Chained up. Delivered his load. Reloaded and went down south. Reloaded and delivered and was home for his routine weekend off time. While the other 3 drivers were still waiting on the storms. In the rest area.

Not only did they not make any money for the week. They missed their weekly hometime with their wives and kids.

 

Luckily I don’t give a #### what you think.

Exactly.

 

Let me just be straight up about this. It's completely illegal to threaten a driver in this context. Any company worth a #### will terminate that dispatcher and conduct an investigation. And set an example for the rest of the company. This all comes down to the dispatcher's negligence,and lack of planning. That dispatcher is bad for the company. That dispatcher, is putting the company's neck on the chopping block and the dull blade of a civil suit is going to hack off their heads with six or seven sloppy attempts...

Seriously, any company that would allow this is compromised and you are jeopardizing your future by continuing to work for them. The good news is, if you have their hooliganism documented as it happened, and can prove it was documented at the time you said it was documented... this will have some weight later on. It will not look like a self-serving record if you have emails to the boss complaining of a safety violation, and then he emails you back giving you attitude, picking you apart for irrelevant things ("work performance, " or "tardiness," whatever they come up with.) Get it in writing, and you can at least 1) get unemployment after you flip them the middle finger, 2) probably sue them for all lost back pay, about three years of front pay (or all pay up until you get a new job to offset your losses) plus an additional 33% paid in cash or so for health benefits. You feel what I am saying? What I am saying is, if your employer is pulling this on you, then you should entice them to write a fat check with your name on it to make a serious legal issue go away. I'm not an attorney or anything. I'm only suggesting that maybe you should make their life miserable since they are doing it to their employees, unlawfully and at the expense of their families, lives, whatever the #### else. They'll fire you for rejecting the load and then terminate you for having an accident while pointing to some ambiguous company policy which forbids driving in unsafe conditions. . . rambling on ... they place all liability on the driver, while coercing the driver unlawfully. To insulate themselves from liability, they implement a policy in the company handbook which allows them to terminate any driver who knowingly drives in unsafe conditions (something you find out only after you have a preventable accident, something you tried to avoid and warned them about, something they tried to silence in the first place..) You guys probably know what I mean if you've done this job long enough.

 

Did you ever sue that tanker company that wanted you to drive with the truck empty and the trailer loaded?
Did you ever find another tanker job?