Fired for a backing accident, who will hire me?

I know Schneider has some tough safety standards, but this does not seem right? Probation and a safety program yes, but termination? Are you sure they did not combine some other incident while you were training or something? Based on what you discribe, both trailers were road worthy after the acident, in other words you did not puncture the side of the skin? I would check your DAC and see what that put down in their termination report.

 

Hartford Insurance says about backing accidents...less than 5% of your time is spent backing yet backing causes 95% of the claims.

 

Like I say:

"Never THINK you can make it
when KNOWING is only a 53' walk!"

 

Just find a small company to go with to get your experience out of the way.

 

If you weren't careless, you wouldn't have hit the trailer. If you came in for a post-accident report to me and had that attitude, you'd be packing as well. The only person responsible for that crash and subsequent termination was you. You'll be a much better driver when you figure that out. Good luck.

 

Schneider...been there done that. In April I had an accident and because there were no witnesses and I didn't slam on the brakes or overcorrect hard enough to trigger the accident report on the truck they claimed I fell asleep. They didn't blackball my DAC but every prospective employer was told some line of BS. Several companies had all but hired me til they talked with SNI then informed me there was no way they could hire me. I even faxed copies of the accident report stating I wasn't at fault. Be upfront about everything and try every company big and small. I got on a local job running regional. Stay tough and eventually someone will take a chance on you. Good luck.

 

I don't know the nature of your incident (hit trailer on blind side, cut too short and hit trailer on sight side...), but If I were a safety director, this would send up a red flag for me. A tanker has no rear overhang as the tandems are all the way to the rear of the trailer. Just this fact alone makes it much easier to back into a space, tight or not. Wherever you put the tandems, that is where the rear of the trailer is generally going to be.