Truck Driver Knocks Down Fire Hydrant, Then Tries To Put It Back

I find this very interesting. Because there is so much more then just oos that go into figuring out how safe a company is. There is, accidents to miles driven. There is also the amount of tickets issued to truck company, and the kind of freight they houl. It would be interesting to see those numbers if there available.

Murderspolywog wonders,

I find this very interesting. Because there is so much more then just oos that go into figuring out how safe a company is. There is, accidents to miles driven. There is also the amount of tickets issued to truck company, and the kind of freight they haul. It would be interesting to see those numbers if there available.

It's all there, and more:

FMCSA SAFER Web Company Snapshot

To tell you the truth I don't know why anyone would care very much about how safe any particular company is compared with another or what the perception is of any particular company's drivers. Driving is an individual thing. If I drive for a company that has 20 wrecks a day but I'm not in any of them, guess how safe I am? That's right, I'm 100% safe. I honestly don't factor in the other drivers at my company when I evaluate my own performance.

Now if a company was running into problems with DOT because their equipment was famously unsafe then that's a different story. But that's normally not a story we're concerned with for people coming out of school because the overwhelming majority of companies that will hire a new driver are large companies with newer, well maintained fleets.

But overall is Swift safer than CR England or is TMC safer than Maverick? I don't know and honestly I never thought it mattered. I just made sure I didn't drive off a mountain or hit a bridge no matter what company I worked for and I hoped no one else did either regardless of where they worked. But when choosing a company I didn't care what the safety record was of their drivers. I'm not their drivers. I'm me. My safety performance is not affected by the safety performance of anyone else.

The only reason that the amount of violations a particular company has should concern you as a driver is because the violations drive up the csa score for your prepass. If the company has a high csa score you will get more red lights on the prepass.

There may be another layer to this idea though.

I know how I posted a couple days ago about how I felt my training experience was sub-par, which is a conclusion I may have come to a bit hastily because over the past few days, things have been going very smoothly for me and I've actually been enjoying myself.

However, this past weekend, I stayed at the Love's just south of Chicago on I-55 because they couldn't get something that picked up earlier than this morning. In the middle of the night Saturday, someone knocked on my window, another Swift driver. He asked me if I could help him squeeze into the spot next to me. After he was in, he got out and told me he had just gotten off his mentor's truck a couple days ago and because his mentor (an owner/op) never let him back, he had only done angled backs a small handful of times (and never actually in between other vehicles).

I talked to him a bit more, asked him about other things he may or may not have learned from his mentor. Trip planning? No. Tandem sliding? No. Scaling a load? No. He said that he doesn't even have the money to scale a load even if he wanted to, so I bought him dinner the next night. I gave him just about every good tip I know, but that's no replacement for developing skills under the supervision of a trained eye.

Other drivers will watch guys like him and have a laugh, but honestly, I find his situation very upsetting, and I'm sure there are many that are just like him, upgrading to their own trucks every day. I feel lucky that my mentor was a company driver. Not that I have anything against O/O's, but if a company presents a golden opportunity, there are always going to be those that will take advantage any way they can.

This may just be more of my naiveness talking, but this is just how it looks from my perspective. It might be a bit deep for a post about somebody running over a fire hydrant, but these thoughs gotta go somewhere, right? Haha

He said that he doesn't even have the money to scale a load even if he wanted to, so I bought him dinner the next night.

He played you. Swift pays for scale tickets through the comdata card.

never let him back, he had only done angled backs a small handful of times (and never actually in between other vehicles).

Interesting, as Swift requires you to turn in a paper at the end of training with a certain number of different types of backs documented (I think it was 40). Did his trainer also make him fudge the back sheet?

I feel lucky that my mentor was a company driver. Not that I have anything against O/O's

My trainer was an own op. He was a fine trainer, and taught me well. My boyfriend's trainer was a company driver, and he was less than desirable to put it nicely. It's really the luck of the draw.

He played you. Swift pays for scale tickets through the comdata card.

Before someone corrects me, "scale ticket" here means the paper you get showing your weights after scaling the load, usually at a truck stop. Not an overweight fine at a DOT scale. Swift doesn't pay those, the driver does (and it's a lot more than $10.50!)

He played you. Swift pays for scale tickets through the comdata card.

I'm aware of this and showed him how to request a company advance for these instances. It's also why I bought him food instead of giving him $10.50.

Did his trainer also make him fudge the back sheet?

If I'm honest, my mentor did this with me slightly. He only had me do 2 of the blindside backs. He said that doing 8 of them (or however many is required) was "absurd" and only had me do it the two times I did because he wanted me to realize that there's almost always a better way if you stop any think for a moment. He also said in the 13 years he's been with Swift, that he only HAD to do a blindside back less than 5 times.

My trainer was an own op. He was a fine trainer, and taught me well. My boyfriend's trainer was a company driver, and he was less than desirable to put it nicely. It's really the luck of the draw.

I agree with you here. I keep pretty close tabs with just about everyone from my class at the academy and the one that's doing the best (and having the most fun, at that) is with an owner op.

My point there was less about the ethos of an O/O vs a company driver, and more about the prospect of having a co-driver 'for free' being a much larger financial motivator for an O/O to abuse the system than a company driver.

I'm aware of this and showed him how to request a company advance for these instances.

Do they make you send an advance macro now? What a pain. It used to just be preauthorized.

Do they make you send an advance macro now? What a pain. It used to just be preauthorized.

Not 100% certain to be honest. My mentor always paid out of pocket and got reimbursed. I never specifically asked, but the answer looked pretty obvious to me, haha.