My new experience with Gordon Trucking, post-buyout

It's probably a privacy thing. The state can't share that with anyone but the driver and perhaps the insurance company; I haven't heard from them yet and frankly, I hope I don't, but I am not at all confident in that.

 

Final mileage statistics from my short time with Gordon:

Week 1: 2,281
Week 2: 1,625 (at this point, I reminded my DM's Fleet Manager that I was not Midwest Regional, but US fleet and was scheduled to be out for a long time; it worked.)
Week 3: 2,844
Week 4: 3,506
Week 5: 2,641
Week 6 is unknown yet. It was my final week and I have not received the pay stub yet, but it will be pretty good, including a trip to California and back.

So the 5 week total: 12,897 miles. That works out to 2,579 miles average per week; a little lower than I wanted (3,000-ish) but not too bad for a new driver to the company and a 60-mph truck in winter with several long delays for chaining.

 

The driver who came to reclaim my truck last night probably took it since it was still there. It worked out for him, I guess. That truck stop is very busy most nights, so he had a trailer to back under since he was spending the night there, and he has an empty for whatever is in store for him.

As for talking to a lawyer, no, I haven't. I'm still trying to get my head around this whole thing. It happened so fast and THROUGH THE MAIL, without any input from me. And the really irritating thing about it is I canceled my TVC membership 2 weeks ago because they couldn't get the payment right; when I asked if I could reinstate and pay for the time between then and now, the answer was no. So I'm out of luck there, too.

Bummer.

 

I'm not going to share the details except to say it was what they call a "Summons." Just a regular traffic violation. However, the key to the sanction resulted from my not being present while the Deputy Sheriff interviewed another party. And the state of Michigan believes I was "arrested" and "convicted" of a "serious offense." The letter I got was the same one sent to a driver arrested and convicted of drunk driving. I was not arrested, but because I paid the bail, in the eyes of the law, I probably was 'convicted.'

The entire process results from my holding a CDL. None of this would have happened to a "regular" driver, but now, as the state wrote, "A CDL holder, if convicted of a traffic offense in a non-commercial motor vehicle, is subject to the same sanctions as if those offenses occurred in a commercial vehicle." So any ticket now while operating my POV will carry the same weight as if I was driving a Freightliner carrying a load.

My recommendation to anyone reading this is to pay TVC their monthly fee and NOT cancel. You might never need it; I didn't...until I did.

 

You're the luckiest dog in the pound!