Prime Critical Event?

Hi guys. I saw in another thread that some companies count "hard brakes" and "critical events" as accidents on your record even though an accident did not take place.

I'm curious.. does Prime do this? How would I know if it happened? And what do they do about it? What constitutes as a critical event? Thanks

I've had a few quick stop events with Swift. My DM immediately messages me, "is everything OK?" Stop lights or sudden traffic backups are OK - no harm, no foul.

Prime considers critical events as near-accidents and when they happen expect a call from your DM followed by a lengthy lecture about what you could have done to prevent it. In their eyes, it will always be your fault.

However, it does not go on your record, but Prime does keep track of them on their driver profile of you. In other words, if I go to the DMV and get my driver printout it won't be on there, but if I type my name into Prime's driver database then it will be on there.

Stability control and hard braking are the two most common critical events that I know of. Definitely avoid getting them, but don't think it's the end of the world if you do.

Also, forgot one more thing, when you get a critical event your QC will start flashing colors, you'll get several alarms (red colored [!]), and a phone call incoming.

I've experienced a few hard-braking events at Swift, and like Errol my DM will call me to see if I am OK. That's usually the extent of it unless accompanied with a traffic signal violation. Hard braking will almost always cause the in-cab camera to capture and upload a video image of the event.

The stability related critical event is a whole other concern, and fortunately I have not had one of them but I know a few drivers who have. For example a stability event could occur from excessive speed on either an exit or entrance ramp. At least at Swift, this occurrence is far more serious, and dealt with accordingly. Likely to follow is a face to face meeting with the DM, Terminal Manager and Safety director and probable course of action. In this example driver is narrowly avoiding a roll-over event...

I drive for Prime. One time I got a critical event when I was just casually cruising along on a straight highway at 58mph. There were no turns, winds, or anything. I was perplexed and naturally my dispatcher thought I was lying about taking a curve too fast or something but there was nothing I could do but reassure him everything's fine.

I did get a real critical event while training though. My trainer was not the most patient person and he told me I didn't have to take downhills so slow. So when he told me to grab another gear despite a curve ahead, I just listened. Fortunately, we didn't roll. Obviously. Lesson learned; you should trust your own judgement because you're the one driving after all.

Also over speed it used to just give a caution then they took the over speed alert off, now they made excessive speed a critical event. If you hit 81 mph you get a red flag not a phone call unless you maintain the high speed or do it repetively. I wouldn't advise trying to go that fast anyways but I figured I'd throw that one out there

Hi Rainy, Prime only counts those against you internally.

Ken C.