Fired for U-turn

Last week on 40E in knoxville a tractor and 4 wheeler crossed up, smashed into the barrier under the 275 overpass and tangled into the bridge legs. I was about 1/4 mile behind, hell of a brake check, all lanes closed. Junk landed in the westbound side too.. Serious mess.

 

Yep me too. And I have only been driving a semi for 18 months. When your running some of these country roads and you see any opportunity to whip it around because the Intersection is big enough you take the advantage.
You don't know how many more miles you might have to go down that country road before you can turn around again.

Look 4 times in both directions and line it up and pull it off And be dang sure you can before traffic can roar up on you.

I hauled boats in SW Florida for 30 years previously. All we have here is U-turns.

 

Had a construction crew in PA detour me to a 12' clearance once. I called 5-O and had them hold traffic so I could turn around safely and then got a route out of town. No grief from the police at all.

 

Because they'd rather help turn you around and then chew out the construction crew than have to call in a bridge inspection crew after extricating you from the can opener

 

I'm not ripping into the OP as much as I am astounded at the accident every 3 months average. A jackknife then 3 preventables? I suspect this job action is more about those accidents than a U-Turn, even though I am aware some carriers will fire a driver for such!

I was speaking to a friend that works in safety for a large carrier. He told me one of their drivers is inbound today from Denver because he tore the landing gear out from under one of their trailers. This makes the 2nd time in and the decision was made to terminate the driver. Sometimes something innocuous like a U-turn is not enough on its own to get a driver fired. However, if the said driver has a horrid history of accidents, well the U-turn then becomes a bit more than just an innocuous act and a line gets crossed.

 

These companies get what they pay for, then make up silly rules to protect themselves from the drivers they hire. Luckily the FMCSA is looking at detention pay. Clown show all the way around.

 

One last thing. We work in a industry that now puts restrictions on what kind of transmission you can drive. Think about that. No wonder U turns are so evil. I would just like to go one week without pulling into a fuel island that some Yahoo didn't drive away with a hose stuck in his tank.
This business hires and spits them out quick. Good money can made when you take the flip flops off and pay attention. They might even let you make a U turn or two.

 

Exactly right. The u-turns were just the straw that broke the camel's back. Somebody in the office took a good hard look at this guy's history and sent out the word..." Things are going from bad to worse with this driver. Get rid of him before he does serious damage".
They just didn't want to wait for another damaging occurence so they nailed him for the u-turn instead.

 

Get Class B and drive a bus. You drive a static route so you never have to do a U-turn.

 

Remember, if you go O/O the only thing keeping you from driving stick is yourself