Fired for load shift, deemed preventable by safety.

In a sealed trailer common sense would have to prevail. If I pick up a sealed trailer and all I know is it’s rolls of paper unless the paperwork I have spells out exactly what it is I’m going to assume I have 6 tall rolls in the trailer and I’ll drive accordingly. It doesn’t matter what’s in or on a trailer, it won’t move without outside input.

 

This driver had a hard brake coming down mounteagle. Roll stock slid all the way to the nose. He then dropped it at the yard.

I knew I had a problem as soon as I hooked, just not how big of a problem until I put it on the scale. It should have been self evident that the load shifted. This load shift cost the company in excess of $2,000 in terms of rework and late fees. Had the landing gear collapsed it would have been much worse.

If it was your truck and trailer, would you keep the driver around?

For me it depends - what else has the driver done or not done to make himself an asset/liability. There are some minor things that you look and go "yeah, he's going to cost us a lot of money, it's better to cut him loose now".

 

I wonder if company trucks have G-sensors and most of them definitely have at least outward-facing cameras. Maybe they can set it to record incidents and find out if you hit some railroad tracks at 65 MPH? I suppose they would have told OP if that was the case.

 

Some companies look on a new driver, or rather a driver new to driving, as a liability and an accident waiting to happen, while others recognise the drawbacks of inexperience and make time for good custom and practice to be accumulated. If the former they have no business hiring such an inexperienced driver in the first place, but if the latter they would give training and support on the basis that a lesson once learned is unlikely to be forgotten, and sacking the driver may be a big mistake because the one that replaces him may be just as bad, How do you know? You know nothing, until it happens.
We do not know enough about this incident but my first thought is that the company has been hasty, to say the least.

 

I once had a bad load shift happen. It was on a load from Stockton, CA to somewhere in PA. The shipper put an extra 5k on my trailer above what was on the bill of lading, so I thought I was even on my axles. Caltrans though otherwise, and my total weight wasn't the 74,000 that I would've been if the paperwork was correct, but instead I was at 79, 960 lbs total weight, and was within 200 lbs of legal on all axle groups after I moved my tandems.
Everything was fine until Indianapolis, when I was going down the LOOOONG aisle in the parking lot, when some jackwagon in a large-car decided right then to just shoot out of his space, forcing me to jam on the binders full-strength. The nose of the trailer WAS a bit bowed after that, but I knew that my axle weights had changed, so I went straight to the CAT scale to re-weigh. Turns out the load had shifted enough that I had to move my tandems forward another 2 notches to get legal. Nothing was damaged, it seems (load was moldings stacked flat, and mostly facing forward...), but what a pain that load was.....

 

Well you weren't fired for the load shift, you were probably fired for the damage to the trailer. The damage caused had to be significant if it warranted a termination. It isn't the end of the world. Most drivers, if not all, have had a load shift on them for one reason or another. A great piece of advice was given to me in order to protect loads during transit: drive the load, not the truck. It may not make sense at first sight, but some loads you have to be more careful. Beer comes to mind. They stack it fairly high, and if you take a curve too fast the liquid and the high stacked pallets will put a rollover on your record. All that said, I don't see why you wouldn't be able to find another job.

 

Im thinking the load shifted and tipped over laying against the wall, it had to be unloaded by hand onto empty pallets.

 

i remember many moons ago, picked up a container, got to the customer, popped the seal, lift the handle, WHAMMM freakin door flys open, Brake drums leaning against door, got knocked back , scared the daylights out of me. Learned a lesson, pop the handles and run backwards real fast.

 

speaking of loads, get to sheboygan, wi. go inside had doors open, i say "Bang on the wall when you done unloading" he say "OK" all of the sudden
he looks at my load, and says "WOOOO, wait a minute, you have the can product on the wrong pallets" I say , WHAT" You have to put that 40K # on CHEP pallets. I had to unload EACH pallet by hand. NOW thats a bad day.