Liability On Damage Done To Trailer

Brett, I had every intention of staying with PAM for the entire year, until they asked me to pick up a trailer at a Great Dane dealership, and run it to another trailer repair shop in Montgomery, AL. When they made the initial request, it was a red flag to me, because I was wondering why the shop where it was located couldn't do the repairs. I was told the trailer simply had a hole in the roof that needed to be sealed.

When I arrived at the GD dealership, the trailer was backed up so close to a building, that I couldn't walk around behind it, without first hooking to it, and pulling it away from the building. One of the first things I noticed, was that 3 of the 5 hinges on the door of the trailer were completely sheared off, and I could see the freight inside had shifted rearward, and caused the damage, because the doors were buckled. I walked around to the passenger side of the trailer, and the 3 center hinges were broken on that side as well. The damage on that side was even worse, than on the drivers side, exposing even more of the freight. I couldn't even imagine pulling this trailer down the interstate , without having other drivers on the phone reporting it to DOT.

I got on the phone with my DM , and told him about the damage. He claimed that he had no idea that the trailer had any more than a hole in the roof that needed repair. He expressed wonderment, at how the trailer doors could get in such condition. I explained to him, that all it would take, would be for the driver to stop the truck, and forget to set his brakes. If once he realized the truck was moving, and jumped back up into the front seat to apply the brakes, it could shift a load of paper bales rearward. That was when he told me, there weren't any hills in Alabama steep enough to create a scenario like I described. LOL

So, I refused to pull the trailer anywhere until it was repaired, hung up the phone, and out of curiosity, went inside the dealership to see what I could find out about it's condition. The shop manager explained to me, that the driver who left it, had dropped it for roof leak repair, but when they went outside to bring it into the building, they found the trailer doors nearly torn off. He explained, that they could not do a full assessment of the damage, and complete a quote, without gaining entry to the trailer. He said they had been waiting all morning, to hear from someone "high up" in management at PAM, to get permission to break the seal, but so far their phone had not rung.

The trucking industry is unique, in that a driver sometimes has to refuse to do things they feel are unsafe or against the law. The people who work in dispatch, who make these requests that can put a drivers life and license in jeopardy, in most cases don't even have the authority to fire the driver. So they are by some folks standards, a paper tiger that has no teeth. Unfortunately some new drivers, after working in other industries, are afraid they may be fired or punished in some fashion, if they don't complete these type requests.

It reminds me of a story that happened a decade ago, who was asked to repeatedly violate his HOS , in order to make 3 dedicated runs per day. He was told, if the company lost that account, he would be forced to go back to the National fleet, and give up his regular home time, which they knew he valued, because of his family situation. When he fell asleep at the wheel from total exhaustion, 7 siblings died in a fiery crash as a result. Without the new coercion laws that are in effect now, the folks in dispatch who coerced him into that situation had no incentive to do what was ethical. Since DOT could easily prove that the driver had repeatedly violated his HOS, which was the main catalyst in creating the situation, he was sent to prison for 7 years. He got 1 year for every childs life he took. The grandfather of the children also died shortly thereafter, after hearing the fate of his grandchildren.

I remember my dad telling me once, "If you give respect, you get respect. If you act like a jerk, be prepared to be treated like one." After several instances with that same DM, where I was asked to break the law, I decided it was time to get out, before I ended up with something on my record that wouldn't cause PAM to immediately fire me, but could keep me from obtaining employment elsewhere.

If a driver ever hopes to build a resume in the industry, which will allow them to work in one of the niche areas where the best money is, such as tanker or HAZ-MAT, they have to protect their driving record, in order to develop the type of driving record these higher paying companies are looking for. Sometimes the smart thing to do, is cut your losses, and move forward.

When I left PAM, my DM told me over the phone that anytime I wanted to come back, I always had a job with them. I thanked him, and told him I had enjoyed working with him.

Ok so dispatch asked you to pull a trailer that isn't safe. But you never finished the story. After dispatch said to move the trailer you then informed them that it wasn't safe to move it in its current condition.

Then what did they say?

Then if dispatch had said, "Move it anyways" you obviously would have gotten the safety director on the line after emailing him a picture of the broken hinges and buckled doors, right?

So what did dispatch say after you told them you couldn't move the trailer and did you contact the safety director about any of this?

If you're going to quit your job every time someone asks you to do something you don't agree with you're going to be quitting your job every other week. I never in my career came across a situation with a company that couldn't be worked out. One time I was asked by dispatch to drive empty into the heart of the fiercest blizzard of that winter so they could offload the freight from a truck that had rolled over into my trailer. I just laughed and said (to paraphrase):

"You're kidding, right? I can't drive into that blizzard empty. You just had a fully loaded truck go off the highway and roll over, right? What do you think is going to happen if I try to drive into that storm empty? I'm from Buffalo. Trust me, if it can be done I can do it. But I don't believe it makes sense on any level to try something insane like that when the storm will be over in 24 hours. And besides, no one is going to be able to get to the scene to offload that freight in the middle of the blizzard."

Well my dispatcher insisted it had to be done. So I called the safety director, told him what they were insisting, and about 20 minutes later they sent me my next load assignment going in the opposite direction of that storm. No big deal.

And for every fiery crash story there are 10,000 stories of situations where a driver told the company he couldn't do something safely, they talked it out, the plans were revised, and everyone continued on with their day. No big deal. You said it yourself:

The trucking industry is unique, in that a driver sometimes has to refuse to do things they feel are unsafe or against the law.

Exactly. And of course the trucking industry is also unique because you're pretty much required to break laws as part of your normal routine at times and we all do it, yourself included. Why don't you quit your job when the shipper loads a heavy load on you and you can't scale it without driving down the road to the truck stop? You know there's an excellent chance you're overweight on one of your axle sets but you drive it anyways, don't you? It's just one of those gray areas in trucking I wrote an entire book about that you have to learn how to deal with as a driver.

But quitting your job every time someone asks you to do something you don't agree with isn't going to get you anywhere. A policy I have with all people in all circumstances is that I never get mad at someone for asking. I might laugh at you. I might ask you to walk me through your thinking process. But I'm not gonna come unglued because someone asked me to move a trailer that was overweight or damaged or whatever. I'm going to handle it the way I feel is the safest, surest way of handling it and if the person I'm speaking with isn't capable of understanding my thinking on the matter then there's always someone in that safety office that very much understands exactly what I'm talking about.

Okay, so I hear that a trailer gets door damage while being loaded or unloaded by either another trailer or not sure who, so my friend was sleeping but was told to unhook the trailer and leave it, they will move it if needed, get it is over mid night, how can the driver be responsible for the damage to trailer door if he was not the one that did the damage and don't know as he was not their to witness it. I don't think its fair for that as how can the driver be watching the trailer 24/7 if driver has to sleep and load was not going to be ready at any given time.

Back on topic here, One time I broke some fancy hub covers on a too-tight scale, I owned up to it and paid for them. Another time I came out from lunch and a hub cover was broken, probably a car hit me, I offered to pay for half since it wasn't my fault, but the vehicle was my responsibility at the time. That was accepted. Next time if the dock wont admit to the damage in writing, call the police before moving the vehicle and get a report. Without a police report its often difficult to collect insurance, which is probably why your boss wants you to pay for it, he might be unable to collect insurance for it. IF I wanted to keep that job I would deny doing the damage and offer to pay for half the repairs.

Phil

Brett, I apologize for just now getting back to respond to your post. I parked 2 nights in a row in a location without Wi-Fi, and I'm just now getting back to the site.

The situation wasn't a one time incident with the DM I had problems with. It was drawn out over several months. I had problems with him, called the head of safety, as well as 2 other guys who had given me their business cards when I went to work for the company. I ended up getting a different DM, and she was fantastic. During the 2 month period she was my DM, she never asked me to break the law.

However, after 2 months, she got a promotion to the auto parts lane, and the Operations Manager decided to sneak and give me back my old DM without my knowledge. I noticed that all communications with my DM had come to a halt, but I thought Tammy (my good DM) was just busy.

Then one night, I am talking to a guy in dispatch on the phone, and made reference to Tammy. He told me she wasn't my DM anymore, because she got transferred. He then told me who my DM was, and had no idea he had divulged what they had been hiding from me for 2 weeks.

After my previous experiences with him, I called him up and talked with him about not being interested in any activities that required me to break the law, or company policy. He responded by stating that nothing around there would ever change. Almost like he was trying to convince me it was out of his hands, but I never had those problems with Tammy, or any of the folks who worked nights or weekends, so I knew he was again trying to play games with me.

At that point, I went ahead and started looking for another job. Before I could actually settle on a company, the incident with the trailer with the broken hinges happened, and that day I made up my mind that I would be a driver who turned in my 2 week notice under his watch. That's how DM's get fired, especially so where I am working now.

When I come here to the site and relate my previous experiences, my goal is not to discourage any new driver from entering the industry. It is to relate a story of success, and how I navigated a particular problem that others may be faced with along their journey. If you notice, almost every story I have related here starts out a negative, but all works out in the end. To deny that we all go through these things at some point in our career, does a disservice to all the drivers in the past who have overcome these same obstacles.

As for the example you gave on breaking the law concerning the weight scale issue, I would like to point out that it is a situation that DOT monitors, and knows that drivers are running loads short distances, in order to check them before proceeding to the consignee. If DOT wanted to totally control the situation, they could require every shipper to have scales on site, and require them to be periodically calibrated the same way fuel pumps are required by law to be calibrated. DOT has the option to set up portable weigh scales right outside a shipper, but they usually don't. They have other ways of dealing with problem shippers who habitually load trucks overweight, using fines and penalties. Protecting the condition of the roads is just one of DOT's many functions, and I'm sure if they are not satisfied with their results, the will change them to protect the billions of tax dollars that are invested.

I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I would leave a company over one instance, without speaking with someone and making an effort to move forward in a positive situation with a particular situation. I'm almost 51 years old, I have never been written up with a disciplinary action on the job, and have never been fired from a job, only laid off.

I'm supposing that you have had so many instances of people coming on to the site with "sour grapes," after quitting the industry, that when you read a post, sometimes it can come across as intentionally destructive to the goals of the site.

When I relate a story here, it's about helping others if they find themselves in a similar situation at some point down the road. For example, if I had a young child come home to me and complain that a guy at school were untying their shoe laces, and they wanted to know what they should do, because they were afraid they might fall. My response would not be to tell the child to punch the other child in the nose, but I would teach him to tie his shoes in such a way, that the other kid couldn't untie them.

If over an extended period of time, my child continued to have problems at a particular school, and I tried to resolve those problems with the teachers and principle but my efforts were unsuccessful, I would probably consider getting the child into another school.

Okay, so I hear that a trailer gets door damage while being loaded or unloaded by either another trailer or not sure who, so my friend was sleeping but was told to unhook the trailer and leave it, they will move it if needed, get it is over mid night, how can the driver be responsible for the damage to trailer door if he was not the one that did the damage and don't know as he was not their to witness it. I don't think its fair for that as how can the driver be watching the trailer 24/7 if driver has to sleep and load was not going to be ready at any given time.

Back on topic here, One time I broke some fancy hub covers on a too-tight scale, I owned up to it and paid for them. Another time I came out from lunch and a hub cover was broken, probably a car hit me, I offered to pay for half since it wasn't my fault, but the vehicle was my responsibility at the time. That was accepted. Next time if the dock wont admit to the damage in writing, call the police before moving the vehicle and get a report. Without a police report its often difficult to collect insurance, which is probably why your boss wants you to pay for it, he might be unable to collect insurance for it. IF I wanted to keep that job I would deny doing the damage and offer to pay for half the repairs.

Phil

So, since then, this man was MIA for a week, avoid my calls, and finally a day short of a week, he calls and says not avoiding him, but his wife in icu, and is going to pay him for load and no problem with the doors, but is avoiding him again, so he goes and presses charges for his belonging still in the truck and for theft of services. This man was actually on a otr trip and was telling my friend the truck was in repair shop for something mechanical [pins] and he could not get his stuff out, all the time he was on the road. He is avoiding my friend to not pay him for the trip he last made as he had to come back empty from Mississippi to Texas. The place where he was to load last had no chicken and he was detained for three days almost. What do you think about this? Now he wants to say, he left empty because he had no patience to wait and he owes him nothing, that they are even and if he wants to get money from his delayed time at the site, he needs to work it out with the brokers [and he has not knowledge regarding who the broker is] A damn character he ended up to be. My friend was told by two other drivers, that approached him when he just started that this man owed them pay and was avoiding their calls. One of the drivers, even still had personal belonging on the truck, seems that the man did exact same thing to him.

I'm not even sure what the topic is anymore, but this thread is an obvious lesson in the benefits of working for the large national trucking companies where your good solid paycheck is never late and they take care of their equipment.

I'm not even sure what the topic is anymore, but this thread is an obvious lesson in the benefits of working for the large national trucking companies where your good solid paycheck is never late and they take care of their equipment.

well, yes, lesson to learn....but in the mean time....ADVICE, what would you do?

Chalk it up as a hard lesson learned. I have plenty of empathy for you, but believe me, I've had my share of hard lessons in life. If your friend doesn't learn anything from this one, they will continue repeating this same type scenario and always be playing the victim.

My Dad had a lot of relevant sayings that he used to teach me life's lessons. One of them was: "Life is hard on ignorant folks." What he meant was: if you don't learn from your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them.

Chalk it up as a hard lesson learned. I have plenty of empathy for you, but believe me, I've had my share of hard lessons in life. If your friend doesn't learn anything from this one, they will continue repeating this same type scenario and always be playing the victim.

My Dad had a lot of relevant sayings that he used to teach me life's lessons. One of them was: "Life is hard on ignorant folks." What he meant was: if you don't learn from your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them.

If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough

Chalk it up as a hard lesson learned. I have plenty of empathy for you, but believe me, I've had my share of hard lessons in life. If your friend doesn't learn anything from this one, they will continue repeating this same type scenario and always be playing the victim.

My Dad had a lot of relevant sayings that he used to teach me life's lessons. One of them was: "Life is hard on ignorant folks." What he meant was: if you don't learn from your mistakes, you are destined to repeat them.

If You're Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough

how was he dumb, you are a hard working person, give your employer the benefit of the doubt. You try and be a loyal driver and get jacked up by one of the many that are corrupt...how was he to know, how did he know the other people where just not talking out spite. Question, what would you do, chalk it up? No, we pressed charges for labor theft, but want to discredit him in public, give me advice on what can be said and would you do it. It has really ****ed us up...and yes, lesson learned. He is looking closely into every little detail now.