New driver fired after 7 weeks

I got nothing. What your describing is basic truck driver knowledge. You have to drive the trailer and make sure you’re not going to hit anything.
You can’t be out there running people off the road.

 

@Chinatown will be along after awhile. He can give you some pointers on where to look for a new job.

 

Western express would be my guess ! ... or chicongo companies

 

Hmmmmm....this is going to be a bit of a bizarre suggestion but why don't you apply as if you were just getting out of school? As in apply as a recent grad. I'm reading this, and I mean you no harm but you may not be ready just yet. You may need some more training and practice behind the wheel. I think by doing that, it may help your chances of getting hired on somewhere. I'm not sure if that will work, but I'm only suggesting that because you've got 7 weeks of experience with 2 incidents. I think you may need to start over, and go with a trainer all over again if you really want a job.

 

I agree with this.

Apply as if new. Just means going through the company's full orientation instead of a short one. Any company that hires new CDL holders wont require experience, this will mostly be megas but with you only having 7 weeks experience you are still new.

The insurance for most companies require no more than 3 accidents or tickets in the previous 3 or 5 years, depending on the situation of them. Assuming those are the only things (and the trailer vs pole would hardly count), then you should be ok at any mega for a year or so to get the experience needed to go to a better company.

 

Apply at companies that hire students right out of CDL school. You have more experience than the students. One thing you have to do is watch in the mirrors the side or back of the trailer nearest the danger, like the pole you hit. After being on TTR for many years and UseNet for many years before that, it's my impression that every year students and new CDL drivers are just a lot less careful. They mention hitting things and having near-misses like they are nothing. Some of them talk about having accidednts and getting tickets like every CDL driver is routinely hitting objects and getting tickets like a fisherman gets rained on.

At night you have a big advantage for NOT almost running a car off of the road because any vehicle with working headlights projects those lights 100-200 feet beyond just the vehicle itself. I drove night shift for almost 20 years. I suspect you were not checking your mirrors every few seconds and before you changed lanes. You have to lean forward or backward when checking mirrors to confirm if anything is in your blind spot.

Another thing I've seen lately are brand new drivers, or those almost finished with CDL school, looking for a first job with almost no additional training beyond CDL school. How long was your training at your first employer? In tha days when dinosaurs roamed the earth in middle 1990s new drivers would spend a few months "teaming" with an experienced driver and learning how to do the job and also being observed by the trainer to see if the student was doing things the right way. There are companies now that may hire a newbie and give them a week to 10 days training before unleashing them on the roads. The training period sucks and the pay is low, but it's better than being given a huge and heavy truck and not knowing how to operate it.

I seriosuly hope you carefully examine how you accidents happened and deeply and genuinely understand what you did wrong and make those faulty habits the last thing you will ever do again. It's very easy to kill innocent people and destroy lives in a instant with a big truck. Your only tool for not causing something like that and you living with the consequences such as long term in prison or maybe JUST a few years/decades of crushing self-hatred and inability to sleep is being careful and looking where you are going. Maybe many young people, because of how they were raised, are simply incapable of every feeling guilt and remorse no matter how responsible for some event they may be. I have run into several young people like that. I guess growing up being told you are he most special and wonderful person for a few decades can make killing people seem like just another oopsie like accidentally parking in a no parking zone.

You really need to look into your soul and decide are you able to be serious enough about this job or will you keep doing stuff like this until you get free room and board from the state after a quick trial? All of us, especially me, make mistakes even big mistakes. Learn from them or you will keep making them. Read about others making mistakes and learn from them. It's a lot cheaper to learn from others mistakes than to make them yourself. ONLY you can protect your record, it's not the world's job to redesign the world so no matter how careless anyone is they always have a good outcome.

 

Honest talk…

If I were interviewing you, and you told me about your screwups, like “FORGOT TO WATCH THE TRAILER,” I would be alarmed. Why? Because you knew that you should watch the trailer. That means your trainer did his job, but for some reason, it wasn’t a high priority in your mind. But before I send you walking, I would be looking for you to say anything to let me know that you learned what you did wrong.

(Example) “Well, I was trying to pull into a shop bay and I was looking at the tech guiding me in and forgot about the trailer. I noticed nothing til crunch, and the trailer was damaged. The guide didn’t even notice the trailer.”

vs “I was being guided into the bay. I was so intent on watching the guide that I took my eyes off the trailer for just a sec. A second was all it took. Crunch. Yep, I messed up. I can’t give a guide 100 percent. I still have to keep an eyeball on the trailer.”

Show me that you can learn and I will give you the opportunity. Period. The incident with the car, if the car was on your right side, towards the steer, that was a rookie mistake. Shouldn’t happen, but that’s a common rookie mistake. If it was with the trailer, unless he was running without headlights, it was you being Braindead. Combined with the other incident, Braindead would be confirmed.
Anyway, when asked about these in an interview, make sure they understand that you have learned from the mistakes.

Luck in battle.

 

Are you in Texas?
Which town/city are you near?
I have to go; will be back on here in maybe an hour.