Preventable accident as a student. Am I unhireable right now?

Here it is:

We were headed down the highway in Wisconsin headed for a customer in Deerfield. My trainer told me to stay on the highway until exit 160 and then he went into the bunk to take a nap (I had been with him less than a week). He had a trucker’s gps on and it told me to get off on exit 112 so I started to get off on exit 112 before I remembered that he had told me not to get off until exit 160 (It was a couple of hours after he went in the bunk and it was getting dark out). I couldn’t veer back on to the highway because I could have flipped the truck so I stayed on the exit and woke my trainer up. He started getting upset at me and yelling at me to get the turned around and get back on the highway. He claimed the road was a no truck route although I do not remember seeing any signs indicating that.

He told me to turn around in this parking lot on the right side of the road next to an abandoned building. There was a parked pickup truck in the lot. I didn’t want to get too close to the truck so I ended up staying close to the building. I had everything (tractor and trailer) clear of the side of the building. However there was an overhang on the top of the corner of the building that neither myself or my trainer saw and the right side of the trailer caught it.

My trainer took over and freed the trailer from the building and then called the company. They asked him if he thought it was ok to drive to the customer with the trailer damaged the way it was and he said yes so the shop gave us the ok. My trainer then had me get back on the highway and continue to Deerfield where we stopped for the night (our delivery appointment wasn’t until the morning). However, he did not have the authorities called out before having me leave the scene. I accept full responsibility for what happened (I was driving). I just got flustered when my trainer started getting upset and probably tried to get turned around too quickly resulting in the incident. My trainer was not let go but he was taken off of the training program.

 

In future the best lesson are taught 1st hand and I bet u want do that no more. It sound like your trainer told u 2 follow gps but the gps wasn't a trk gps. U will find another job but it will take time. Have u tried going 2 job boards like www.bubbajunk.com where u put in single application and companies interested will call or email u. But the next time ur in doubt pull over and ask trainer or pick up your map.

 

Prime example NOT to pay all the attention on a GPS. Besides Trainer told him what to do and he decided NOT to listen to trainer and listened to GPS. Bite the bullet and learn from it. It not as bad as could have been. GL in future.

 

If you put 3 different truck GPS's on your dash each one will give you a different route. Truck atlas is the way to go. GPS is for telling you what off ramp is next and where the quiet sleeping spots are. Never drive by GPS it will drive you nuts. We had one driver who drove by GPS, finally got tired of telling him to find the shortest truck routing, had to let him go the cost of keeping him on was too high.

 

Thanks for sharing your story. I am sure you don't like to talk about it but it gives everyone a better idea of the situation. I think maybe the trainer should have been a little more help with you being a newbie and all.

Hope things work out ok for you.

 

Now for the future and all other trainee's out there reading this post the proper procedure would have been once you realized you could not just steer away from the ramp would have been to lock up the brakes. This would have alerted the trainer to the situation. In some cases it would have him out of his bed and back into the driving compartment where he should have been in the first place. The scientific term for this is call momentum. A body (Trainer) at rest will remain at rest unless a force is applied. Now that you have the situation under control engage your 4 way flashers and move to the shoulder. Once in position on the shoulder set your brakes. You can now open the drivers side window, carefully removing the GPS from the dash you drop it out the window. The closer you can get it to the truck the better. Now release your brakes and carefully pull forward and slightly to the left. The combined distance of the truck and trailer should do. This will do 2 things it will reset the GPS so this would not happen again and it will position you to back up along the shoulder to a point where you can reenter the highway safely.

 

Until you get the exp Patrick and feel comfortable reading an atlas,leave the GPS alone.It would also be a good idea to wright down the route,exit or whatever that your trainer wants you to take.Your trainer should have immediately took over the second he got up then maybe he could have got turned around some other way.Can you explain how you could have flipped the trk getting back on the hwy.Just trying to figure out how narrow and tight that exit was.

 

I would only assume he might of been going fast getting off which could of done it, I know its easier to flip an mt than one loaded.

So there wasnt enough damage to the trailer to still go to the shipper but it was enough to get fired?


Next time you want to do a turn around always get a good feel of where your at as well, obstacles in the way such as the pickup and building you mentioned and even look for powerlines and stuff like that. Judge your distance well first, your trainer should of got his butt out of the truck and spotted or even better he should of took it over and got you fixed. Also him taking naps with someone new is a huge no no, he should of been fired for all of these reasons and you stuck with a different trainer.

You live and learn though from mistakes and we all make mistakes rather its a small or large one.

 

The trainer should have never yelled at him in first place. I am glad the trainer isn't training anymore, if he can't control his anger and treat the trainee with respect.

 

oh there are some bad trainers out there, I remember one day maybe 4 months ago or so I was getting a load at a beverage place in American Canyon and I was chatting with a driver when we hear someone yelling at the top of their lungs, it was a trainer yelling at his student because he wasnt backing correctly. Man I wanted to go say something to the guy but I kept my mouth shut and we just couldnt believe the guys attitude.

The trainer I had was great, if I backed in and something was wrong he would just calmly look at me and say "is your trailer straight to you?" and if I said no then he would ask "so how are we going to fix this?" never yelling or anything, to me you get more respect from your trainee and better performance if you show them some first.