Getting forced to haul a load, with a wrecked truck?

Cant believe what I am hearing here.If your DM is telling or ordering you to work under unsafe conditions, go over his head. Call your fleet mgr.If no satisfaction there, there is always the freindly DOT officer to talk it over with.You have to realize that you are the one in charge of that truck, and you have just as much power as your DM. USE IT. Show the DM who is the boss, then quit and move on to a better job.

 

He is not in a good possition to do that at the moment. They have him strung up pretty good. He is at home, they have his truck and his things. If I can get a pm with the truck number I will keep my eyes peeled for it when I am down there.
If I had a GPS he could lead me right to it lol. I would definatly be all over the fleet manager though, and I am guessing he is . All I can do at this point is to do my best though. If they run me well then I will be fine and will have no issues working with them. I am fairly easy to content in a job. Heck I drove a cement mixer for the last year, and that is a job that really sux and has really low pay. Sure I was local , but I was working 50 to 70 hours a week, 6 days every week, from april to November.

Sure there was some overtime but the pay was still poor. If I am going to work that hard I may as well drive over the road and get paid a little more.

 

Tell em flat out,I'm not driving that piece of crap,and that I have alot more pride than what your offer of a truck brings. Walk out and away,if they want you,they will call you back,if they don't you won't really lose anything ,especially your life and maybe your freedom,you will go to jail if you drive a non safe vehicle,that's why we have to do a pre trip,and we are responsible for all that. Not complicated at all,quit flat out and let your next employer know,after you visit the dot office on that company you just quit. If nobody complains nothin will be better for the next guy or girl,don't let these companies get away with inferior unsafe equipment out there,it affects and feflects on our carreers as well as yours in the end.

 

Slow_Starter
I couldn't reply to your PM because I don't have enough posts!

The question was, was I referring to NETTTS, the truck school?

Yes, i was referring to that school. This happened a long time ago and I don't see the trucking company DOT # listed with FMSCA.

To be fair, I learned ALLOT from them after I graduated from the school: Log book fixes, avoiding coops, counting freight, hiring lumpers, scaling loads, changing a tire, driving 3 days straight, helping disabled drivers ( I once loaned a HHG driver my spare tire. He was stuck in the WV hills with a flat and had already used his spare earlier in the day)...
It was like I earned my masters degree in trucking working for them! The equipment was rough and if I wanted to work, I put up with allot. I did my own minor repairs and like I said, I learned everything from them! But the cut-off shock absorber was "way past go"!!!

 

I can only see one mistake you made at the beginning. You failed to contact the police.

I would have done that almost immediately, when the tow truck showed up, if not before.

#1 Those were your personal items on that truck.
#2 You should have, at the very least, received a receipt for said items.
#3 You had company authorization to be in that truck, with your personal items.
#4 The police would have allowed you time to remove YOUR personal items. And, provided you a copy of the incident report.

While the truck is THEIR property, YOUR property was inside of it WITH their permission.

 

Sad Panda who do/did you work for? and what was the company truck that hit ya?

 

My clutch pedal dropped as I was in 9th going to 10th doing about 60.. could not float it out..clutch was hung up tight... so just going down the freeway wondering how to stop 38 tons and survive...Luckly I was on flat roads.. knew a TA was ahead of me.. so called them up and told them to clear a bay... I was coming in hot.. the ramp was uphill so I let off the pedal to coast up the hill... got to the top and it finally popped out of gear.. so now top of hill and TA is downhill.. so did a nice CA stop and rolled to TA.. hitting my horns.. light day at the fuel islands .. coasted to a stop right in front of a bay.. got a 20+ tech to look at it.. he was clueless.. so ended up putting zipties on the rod to the pedal.. got to another truck stop for the night. called safety, shop and road repair. spend the next 4 hours telling them I was not moving anymore. The cable ties were starting to break. Had safety, the shop , the terminal manager and road repair tell me the truck was okay to drive and drive another 300 miles to the shop after delivering the load. Told them it all boils down to one thing... I am in the seat not them. Finally they agreed to get me to Volvo shop. got there and found out that 3 other trucks had the clutch pedal drop. simple 1" long 1/4 round nut and bolt came loose. I could tell you about the time my airbags kinda of did not go all the way up..but i will save that one later...

 

Sad Panda,

I see this post is a bit long in the tooth but it's the first I'm I'm seeing it.

I can't believe no one has presented this info to you yet.

How have you made out by today?

If things have not progressed in your favor, let me offer some ideas.

1st, you should have called the cops to report the accident.
They may have resisted coming out to take a report because it's on private property.

Next, this is a Workman's comp case.
You were hurt on the job thru no carelessness of your own.
Even if it was your own fault it wouldn't matter.
You're still entitled to W/C.
You needed to make a W/C claim out right away.
You may have but if not, it might not be too late considering you have a doctors proof of injury.

Now, before the statute of limitations runs out.
I think it's 180 days.
Put in a claim to OSHA under the STAA whistle blower protections rules.

You are legally protected for refusing to drive due to protected activities.
Anything the company has done to you as retaliation is grounds for a lawsuit.
Those activities include anything that the FMCSA rules say you should not drive the truck for.
In your case, at minimum, you are not allowed to drive a truck that is unsafe or won't pass an inspection.
Also, you cannot drive if there's a medical reason that is or could effect your ability to drive safely.
This especially includes pain meds that can effect your safety performance.

No matter what the company says or does, they cannot retaliate against you for refusing to drive the truck under the circumstances you presented here.

If they have subsequently fired you or just starved you out, it is still grounds for the same lawsuit because it would be considered retaliation for the event.

If fired, they may have even given some completely different reason for doing so.
You still have a claim if you even just believe they retaliated against you for that incident.
You don't need to have definate proof of retaliation at this point...just a reasonable belief they did.

If they've added a negative to your DAC report over this, they can be sued & made to extract all negative info stemming from this.

You are eligible for compensation for all this & maybe even damages.

Find a trucking attorney versed in the whistle blower laws.
I can provide a name of someone who is part of a group specializing in exactly this type of suit.
He/they generally work on the contingency basis.
They don't get paid unless you do.
He/they win most of the time against big corps.