Petty preventables scam

I wish it was just younger people.. I have had drivers from 21 to 70 something.. its what drivers do.. its is a driver issue, not really an age issue. I had a 50 something show up one day who could not back his tractor out of a parking space.. I rejected him.. he called in and told the company that he was "ready to go" and that I was "mean". We were on a dedicated account with LARGE trucks, small stores (multi-drop) and very inexperienced, tired and rushed drivers. I have had "the talk" with many drivers were I advised them to seek another account.. sometimes the even listened. Most of the time, I was terminating them within a couple of weeks. The fact is that i was the "documenter" of suicides, They climbed on the chair, they placed the noose around their necks and the willfully jumped off the chair.

 

That's your fault safety man.
Your the one that approved the hiring of cheap
Inexperienced drivers. You get what you pay for.

That's why you're equipment is all tore up.
You don't see Walmart,ups,FedEx,etc. rolling down
The highway with beat up trucks and trailers.

 

They were hired before they showed up, the carriers standard was what it was. If they could perform the set maneuvers without tearing things up, then they were sent forward to the account. If they could not perform said maneuvers, I washed them out / sent them back to the fleet. Of course it was in a controlled environment before the fatigue and load planners got a hold of them. I can give them the training, I cannot make them use it. And there were a hell of a lot of drivers who "knew more than me".. who I took to the bus station relatively quickly.. it was normally a pretty quiet ride to the bus.

I see a lot of fed ex torn up stuff.. they have become just another junk carrier.

 

That at will rule goes both ways, except that the driver has to return all equipment back to the home terminal or get a job abandonment stuck on them. Probably a good thing because imagine all the trucks parked cleaned out at the beach.

 

I agree there are a lot of careless drivers. But the quoted sentence shows the company faults not the drivers.
They hire the inexperienced because they gutted the rates. Tired and rushed is caused by the poor pay offered to support the gutted rates.

 

The company doesn't drive the trucks.. the drivers do. This IS the industry these days.. and has been for a couple of decades now. My work was complicated by the fact that the "pennies per mile" nonsense has caused the entire issue. Drivers aided the companies in offering practically nothing. I could tell the drivers what they needed to do.. and once they got of out hearing range.. their friendly fleet manager and DM, would be there with stories of how to become millionaires in the big buck world of trucking. No one can make the decisions nor drive the trucks for these people.. and once they start bending things it seems that they were hell bent on bending other things.. There was a "trainer" on my account who had 32 accidents (about 50/50 preventables VS non preventables).. He spaced the accidents out enough that the company would not get rid of him. There are only rules when it suits the company. 1.5 million dollars in accidents on one account when I got there.. it never really ever got lower that 750k no matter what the training was.

 

Is this the same kind of accident at same place mostly, then there can be a problem at that place that needs correcting, trucks have gotten bigger since many of these old places were built and they expect to get 10 gallons in a 5 gallon bucket, you need to document all those accidents and get with those companies to eliminate those hazards now.We can not make America great without a bit of effort.

 

You're expecting the corporation to make improvements that cost money? Every once in a blue moon they would alter something.. most often, the threats or obstruction were removed by trucks and trailers.. after a few of our trucks went somewhere.. anything that could be knocked down or run over.. were.

 

Yes I do, many in this country want to move forward and have a better country for the ones who follow us,(our kids), sitting on our butts saying woe is me and letting a problem continue is foolish and will only dig the hole deeper, then putting over worked drivers into that situation and being surprised when something happens is being part of the problem.

 

I was never surprised.. now all of the upper management safety types (who ironically have never been CDL holders) were always surprised and always coming up with new and "exciting" plans to reduce accidents.. that were never something that would do much of anything. Most of the upper management were less that thirty.. most were younger than 25... it was ridiculous. The issue with most mega carriers is that the managers are right out of college with ideas.. some of the oddest ideas out there. The only way to survive was to follow their plans to the letter, lest the failure be blamed on you (me). I learned in the military that the most effective way to show how stupid a plan was, was to follow the plan down to a T.. and when it failed, it was THEIR failure and they had to blame themselves.