Had my first "incident" today.

Rule Number 10,657 in trucking: NEVER tell on yourself.

 

Rule three.

Do not volunteer information.

Who put that scratch there? Who me? Oh no Suh. It's been there a while. (They did not redefine while or challenge it...)

That's why I like steel cars and trucks. Like my Tahoe. I can take a scratch or dent. No biggie. Our own mother backed into one of our cars behind the front tire once. Put a good sized dish into the fender.

That dish stayed put as long the front end was not damaged.

 

Let's see....enormous damage to the dock plate yellow paint. Huge damage to the rubber seal on the door. Incredible destruction to the door itself. We're putting this on your DAC. You won't be able to quit and go somewhere else before the year 2030. Just how we like it, knave. We're probably gonna have our Safety Department put this unbelievable wreck on Youtube. I've not seen many worse, you careless backer, you.

 

How long have you been out there driving? By noon of my first training day I already had three rules. A person needs at least 15,000 by the end of his first 6 months.

 

I was averaging 150000 a year early on trhen pushing 180,000 in later years with one about 280000 (This was the one I ran three logbooks 7 months at 30K and beyond, a minimum of 16 hours midnight to midnight daily) and another 300000 team miles. all together close to 3 million if you excluded total team miles and strictly solo you are closer to 2.5 million. They were not accident free miles or any of that safety award stuff. Just strictly average I would think.

Keep in mind periods of unemployment due to disciplinary firing and dump truck work that might not be 100 miles for the day.

My first year I was running locally in bulk and then container and finally first team job running auto glass from KY to GM Baltimore in winter storm weather which was pretty much winter storm school, and logbook school first how to build legal logs then how to work around it using HHG miles for me. I had a excellent trainer. The average that one was 450 a day, 15000 a month growing to 750 a day if not more in team.

With wife we maxed out at about 1350 every 24 hours. Truck took 300 gallons every 30 hours or less close to 1600 miles. Essentailly Los Angeles to New Jersey every 2 days and some hours total around 62 or so.

 

If you didn’t admit it, you could tell people years down the road you are a three million mile accident free driver like most liars that claim to be. Only difference is you admitted it and reported it. I see a lot of drivers being “accident free” and I pull “accident free” trailers just like the one in your picture. Half the time even if you didn’t do it they act like you did if you report it.

 

Don't listen to X1. The most generous thing I can say is he exagarests all his stories.
He's one of those truck stop counter cowboys that have to have done everything better, more, and illegal just to make him think he's special or something.

 

I pulled down a phone line behind a rent a center in Pennsylvania. The employee actually saw it happen and didn’t motion or say anything since I was trying not to hit a bldg on one side and dumpsters on the other. I called safety and they said “not your fault, they are supposed to be high enough to make deliveries”. Left shortly there after luckily, there were several upset shops that couldn’t do any business.