Profile For Trucker4Ever

I take full responsibility for not having the adequate experience yet that led me to getting into all 4 of the rookie preventables that occurred in month 2 and month 9 and month 10 of being a brand new CDL driver. Being put in situations where I was rushed and didn’t have adequate time or adequate training had nothing to do with my 4 preventables. Because no brand new driver ever has made a mistake. There I have stated it. Does that make all of you feel better? Did I learn anything from those 4 preventables? Absolutely! My most 12 months of a clean record shows that I have in my opinion but since it was mentioned that I didn’t state what adjustments I made after each preventable, I will state them now. Preventable #1. Never chase after a mule jockey and always be aware of your surroundings and objects that you might hit and always drive slow in a dist. yard. Preventable #2. Park that empty trailer you were supposed to take away in one of the unoccupied docks so it would not be in the way of backing the loaded trailer and get out and look more often, especially if you are doing a blind side alley dock back into a tight receiving area. Also take it very slow when backing into a tight spot even if the clutch keeps over heating causing you to shut down your engine to wait 7 minutes for it to cool. Don’t care about BoJangle customers being made to wait because mentioning them just makes you sound silly to a safety director. Incedent #3. Don’t take your navigation device literally. When it says “stay left” that often just means proceed straight and don’t get off at the approaching exit on the right. Also when possible just always stay in the right lane and then you won’t have a blind spot issue. Also take 10 full seconds counting slowly 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi before even proceeding to start changing lanes and also take the extra time to double check all your mirrors before starting to slowly transition to your right lane. Also adjust all your right mirrors to point as far right as possible and downward to catch someone sitting low and next to your steer wheel on the right. Take the whole full 10 seconds to transition to the right lane will give anyone around the time to not be in your way just in case you don’t see them. Also newer trucks unlike the one Schneider gave you now are equipped with lane change accident avoidance warnings sensors. Preventable #4. If ever a client rejects a delivery at the last minute asking you to redo a drop and hook that you just completed then call your dispatch and tell them to send someone else to complete that task even if you are stuck with no time left on your clock having to overnight at that customer and no pay because the client just rejected your delivery because one of their employees overlooked some remaining merchandise still left in the trailer that was supposed to be empty. Above and beyond everything, looking back is 20/20 and now you should understand that a truck drivers MVR is their worth in this industry so bend over backwards if you have to, to protect your MVR and NOT get into any preventables period otherwise your peers in this group will make sure you feel like a dumbazz for doing so LOL.

If the six mirrors are adjusted correctly, the only "blind spots are directly behind the trailer and five feet from the front bumper. After four Preventable's with Schneider, it's no surprise you were fired. With that on your record, you were incredibly fortunate to be given a chance with W.E. Only once you accept complete responsibility for each of these accidents you were involved in will you show progress. You still don't after reading your latest response, though.

Thank you to everyone for your advice. I do take some amount of responsibility for the incidents I had straight out of GMCDL academy but as someone has also agreed upon, some companies are doing just the bare minimum to quickly throw warm bodies in trucking jobs and that is seems dishonest to pretend that is enough to properly prepare a newbie to perform perfectly straight out of the gate. Anyway my MVR is screwed up for the next 1 1/2 years and after being rejected by most of the higher paying companies I probably have no option but to stay at WE or else find another career. WE has been pushing me to become a trainer for them but since the health benefits are almost non-existent, I’m not sure if I want that increased risk of another new driver getting us into an accident. I know that sounds selfish but I doubt becoming a trainer will honestly pay anymore unless I go sleepless to supervise the trainee or go to sleep working like a team leaving trainee unsupervised. I think I’ll just need to cut back on living expenses. Maybe give up my rental apt since I’m always in my sleeper cab anyway.

I agree with everything Old School said so I won’t repeat any of it. My advice is also to stay with WE for now but for an additional reason. You admittedly had a rocky start to your career but you’re finally on a good track and building that great track record that’s going to eventually land you essentially whatever job you want…if you stay on it. Whatever you’re doing at WE is working for you. I’m assuming you’ve started taking your time more and you said you’re being more careful and that’s excellent. But changing jobs right now comes with a whole new set of challenges—different routes, customers, routines, equipment, dispatchers, etc. These things have the potential to trip you up. Not saying they will but you’re doing so great right now I’d honestly just encourage you to keep at it for a while longer until you have more distance from those incidents so when you do switch jobs you won’t just be looking for anyone that will take you. You’ll be looking for exactly what you want—hometime, pay, hours, type of freight…you name it.

I’ll also throw out there that things aren’t particularly great at a lot of trucking companies right now. We have a few members here with very good jobs who have been slower than ever the last several months. So if you jump ship you may not end up improving your situation after all

Thanks for your feedback. I myself agree that there must be a blind spot for when a low profile passenger vehicle is sitting just next to your passenger side steer wheel. I’m not sure if standing up every time I need to change lanes towards the right would be safe for me to do. The adjustment I have made instead is, 1). when possible just stay in the right lane always, 2). As corny as it seems, literally follow the 10 second rule of changing lanes meaning I allow my turn signal to be blinking for 3 full seconds before I even start to transition to the right lane, then I slowly and gradually use the remaining 7 seconds left to transition to the right lane. I’m at a truck stop now and noticed there are so many truckers that appear to add on an additional mirror above their passenger door tilted down. Is that mirror meant to see the blind spot that the side mirrors and front fender mirror usually misses?

Welcome to Trucking Truth. I am going to get right to my opinion of what your driving career needs, which is 2 solid years of incident and ticket free driving.

In my personal opinion, you need time out with a trainer on the road. I think you have just been lucky not to have any more incidents. Maybe you are more careful now, but I think there are habits you may have that a trainer could help to improve.

Just to pick something out for the sake of discussion. Your roadway incident when you were changing lanes. People don't realize it, but that front right steer tire is a truck driver's worst blind spot. It's the hardest blind spot to double check. I don't think that vehicle came in from another lane. I think you just didn't see the vehicle. It takes 1 or 2 seconds to check that spot by raising up and looking over. That's just an example of something to learn from a trainer on the road.

I am not going to suggest any companies because I think your best play is to stay with WE and tough it out, unless you are willing to try starting out in a refresher program with a training company.

I have been able to find posts in the forums of others that have faced a similar challenge but they all appear to be from 7 years ago so I’m starting a fresh new post for this age old question that I’m sure others have been through. So I know specifics are important so I will try my best and hope you forgive me if my post gets long. I currently have 22 months driving experience with my class A CDL.

I started out during the tail of the COVID-19 pandemic by applying with Schneider in 2021 at one of their get your CDL training academies. In 2021, as you may recall, our country was having supply chain problems and there was an extreme shortage of truck drivers.

I thought some of these companies were even advertising 100k p/yr so why not give it a try? But attending Schneider driving academy right at the tail end of the most extreme pandemic in US history turned out to be affecting the training I received. Specifically Schneider was extremely short on instructors on one hand while on the other they were ramping up recruiting of new drivers like crazy.

The result was per 1 instructor that might normally have 10 students, they suddenly had 20. The reason I mention this is because now that I been in the business for almost 2yrs I can say the one thing Schneider did NOT teach me in driving academy was that it’s extremely important to take your time when you are doing an alley dock back and do it as slow as possible.

Instead because of the 20 trainees to 1 instructor Schneider was doing super fast ally dock back training that had a time limit so they can let 20 trainees practice in 1 truck before the AM or afternoon shift ends. As soon as I passed my CDL road test and got my CDL, Schneider put me to work right away. I was solo on the Target dedicated account, delivering mostly in MD and VA.

Although it might not have been as tough as Dollar General, this was still a very tough account to throw a newbie on in my opinion. Right after the pandemic Target was expanding their receiving capacity by parking numerous cargo containers in their receiving areas leaving less room for truckers to ally dock back. Also Schneider would often jam pack 3 drop and hook assignments into one work day of 14hr (11hrs driving) without being able to use Personal Conveyance. So you had to complete all your work in a rush.

As a newbie who was not taught to ally dock back slow and in my case my career fresh out of GYCDL training 8/21-9-21 from Schneider resulted in 2 preventables in 12/21. 1st preventable, I was bobtail in Target dist yard waiting for my trailer to load for a delivery near the end of my shift and rushed to follow the mule jockey who took my trailer after it loaded and I forgot I was parked next to a pylon that I hit with my tractor which just cosmetically damaged the passenger side fuel tank cover molding.

2nd preventable happened again during another rushed 3 drop n hook day where I had to alley dock back in one of Targets tightest receiving yards that was made smaller by 4 cargo containers parked there AND the driveway to the receiving area was shared with the entrance to BoJangle chicken restaurant next door. In the rush of waiting for hungry BoJangle customers, I accidentally slightly bumped the empty trailer I parked to take away.

Preventable #3 was actually a real vehicle accident where I was on a 4 lane highway approaching a tunnel, my navigation had kept repeating “stay left” but the sign for the tunnel said all trucks must use right 2 lanes, so I was in a middle lane looking first to change to the right 2 lanes, I didn’t see any vehicles in my mirrors, so I turned on my turn signal and started to change lanes and a passenger vehicle must have been changing lanes from right to left out of my view in my blind spot and it made contact with the front passenger steer wheel of my tractor. There was no injury, no tickets issued, and no vehicles required a tow. However there was damage to the drivers door of the passenger vehicle.

Then as for preventable #4, again it was a 3 drop n hook day at the very end of my shift I was just about to hook the last empty trailer I was to haul away when I noticed the store did not complete unloading merchandise. So the client made me un-do that last set of drop n hook I just completed at the end of my shift and asked me to put the empty trailer back and bring the loaded trailer back to the DC. So with not enough time left on my clock, and no option to use Personal Conveyance, I rushed. Somehow there ended up being damage to the 5th wheel release arm. So Schneider let me go after 10 months.

I know I am extremely lucky that Western Express hired me after only job searching for 3 weeks. The good news is that everything at Western Express is WAY better than Schneider. No micromanaging safety directors breathing down my neck about setting off an accident avoidance sensor from almost hitting a shadow. Best of all my most recent 12 months of my driving record is clean. No preventables, no moving violations and no accidents.

However Western Express pays per mile and their rate is low in the industry and like others they seem to keep recruiting tons of new drivers. They are also getting less and less freight delivery orders so my paycheck has been shrinking for the past 2-3 months. So I have applied to switch to several trucking companies that denied my application. Which companies should I try instead?