Accidents Vs Incidents: Preventable/Non-Preventable, Reportable/Non-reportable

Without going into a long history here, I just want to get to the meat of the question I have here. Is it possible to have an accident on your DAC record listed as "preventable" and yet never received a citation from the police that investigated the accident? I know this is generic, and you will probably want to know more information. But this is the bottom line up front, as we used to say in the military. I can gladly give you more information if needed.

Is it possible to have an accident on your DAC record listed as "preventable" and yet never received a citation from the police that investigated the accident?

It is possible. A company can decide that it was preventable and add that to your DAC.

Is it possible to have an accident on your DAC record listed as "preventable" and yet never received a citation from the police that investigated the accident?

It is possible. A company can decide that it was preventable and add that to your DAC.

In that case, I'm toast. Truck driving was fun while it lasted.

You can check out our wiki page for what drivers need to know about DAC (Drive-A-Check) Reports.

Without going into a long history here, I just want to get to the meat of the question I have here. Is it possible to have an accident on your DAC record listed as "preventable" and yet never received a citation from the police that investigated the accident? I know this is generic, and you will probably want to know more information. But this is the bottom line up front, as we used to say in the military. I can gladly give you more information if needed.

Wilson. So DAC has you as a preventable accident. What happened?

'Preventable' covers a pretty broad area. Severity of the incident would be the bigger problem.

Well, here is what has taken place in all the months I haven't been on the forum.

I was happily working for Melton. I even had some "incidents" during my stay there. They are the equivalent of parking lot dings. Never was any damage on my truck; very minor damage to the others. There was a parked truck my trailer just started to rub when I stopped. Police investigated and made a report; no ticket. The other incident with Melton was when I left a consignee. The L/R trailer stake pocket caught a fence post when I left making a RH turn from their parking lot. No investigation, no ticket. Melton took care of the insurance claims. I was never even counseled, scolded, warned, or anything. Melton was very understanding and I kept on trucking.

So after 15 months of OTR driving, Mrs. "Wilson" wanted me home a lot more than what I was. I searched for local positions and finally found one really close to my house. (I am NOT going to name the company I signed on with because.... just because.) So I resigned from Melton and they were not happy to see me leave and told me to come back any time.

I signed on with the new company, attended their orientation and successfully completed it. I came back home and started my local training. The type of job I signed up to was to haul chicken feed to the local chicken farms in the area. Sounded pretty good. Chickens get hungry regardless of what the economy is doing so it was like built-in job security.

So a very happy Wilson starts training pulling this 48' feed trailer to farms.

At first it was strange pulling this one compared to the one I used to pull with Melton...

On top of that, *where* I had to pull that trailer was a challenge. In short, chicken farms are not found in the city. I had to negotiate narrow dirt roads to get to many of these places. Needless to say, when it rains dirt roads become mud roads. Chicken farms are not paved. They also turn into mud holes when it rains. Did I mention that the new guys get to do their routes at night? The 12-hour shifts (5P to 5A) 6 days a week were not all that bad.... Happy Wilson was determined to learn where the farms were and how to get there taking the most efficient route. If you were really good, you could get in 4 loads in a shift.

I got through training and started delivering feed. I averaged 2 to 3 loads a night. Occasionally, I would get that 4th load in. Happy Wilson was Proud Wilson on those nights. Well, sometimes I got stuck on these farms. A wrecker would have to come out and pull me out of the mud if the farmer wasn't around with his tractor. The boss would say, "Don't worry, we all get stuck. It comes with the type of job we do." So I didn't worry. But I would invariably get stuck again. He'd say not to worry about it. I hated getting stuck. Those were 2-load nights, depending what time during the shift I got stuck and how long it took for the wrecker to get there.

I felt like a black cloud was following me, but I kept on trying to be as productive as I could. Then came an "incident" at a farm. In short, I was leaving a barnyard making a LH turn. I was looking back to make sure the trailer wasn't going to hit the chicken house and when I looked back to the front there was a fence post right in front of me. I wasn't going fast at all and I stopped, but not in enough time. The wooden fence post got bumped and broke off at the bottom. The fence wires held it up still, but the post was broke off at the bottom.

A lot goes through your mind at this point. I called one of my colleagues and told him what happened. He told me to forget about it and leave. I looked at it and you could see the tire tracks leading right up to the post. Mind you, this was in the middle of the night and there was no one there. I thought the farmer would discover it soon enough and put 2+2 together and call the company and complain. That would put me in a position that I would either have to lie, or explain why I didn't report it. So I elected to report it to the night supervisor. That fence post was home made and could have been replace for $20 or less. No damage to the truck at all. After one supervisor called another supervisor, I was instructed to call Safety at corporate and report the incident. I did and the next evening, I was counseled in writing about it.

The black cloud got bigger.

Some weeks later, I had a load that went to a farm that I had not yet learned the way to. Fortunately, there was another truck going to the same farm and he told me to just follow him out there. So I did, noting the route. There were also no dirt roads this route so it was a happy time. He took to the back roads and were were going 60 mph on most of those roads (trucks were governed at 63) so we made pretty good time between the towns. Here is where it gets good again.

***To be continued***

Without knowing the rest of the story, I'm gonna take a wild guess that involves speed, following a Co worker and not enough braking distance for $500 Alex.

Without knowing the rest of the story, I'm gonna take a wild guess that involves speed, following a Co worker and not enough braking distance for $500 Alex.

Well, Robert B, if your crystal ball is right, I nominate you to be the Head Moderator for the rest of the day.

About three or so nights later, I get that same farm again. I thought this was cool because I still remembered the route. I set out for this farm and took the same way he showed me. It was just before 10pm when I was getting closer to the farm. The road had rolling hills out in the middle of nowhere. You know how those go. Loaded trucks go slower up hills and faster down the hills. I started going up one of those hills and I saw some brake lights come on a vehicle that was at the side of the road. I went up the hill and as I neared the place where the vehicle was parked, the disco lights came on. So I wondered what the deal was and when he didn't pass me up, I knew he was pulling me over.

Once I found a suitable place to pull over on this 2-lane road, the trooper came up and said (with a smile...) "I gotcha going 61 in a 45!" I asked him, "It's 45 here??!?" He ignored me and collected all the paperwork he needed and went back to his car. In retrospect, I have gone down this road some more times and there are NO speed limit signs on this road. It is a paved country road in the middle of nowhere. Had I seen a speed limit sign, I would have heeded the speed limit. I thought it was 55 mph out there in the country. Well, apparently, there is a statute that says if it is not posted, the speed limit is 45 by default. Lucky me. I was just driving the same route and the same way my colleague was driving. He wasn't going 45. So like I said, no sign and I thought it was 55 out there. Black cloud strikes again. In short, this ticket is pending a court date. I am challenging it and I have a 50 50 chance of it getting reduced or dismissed. So it is presently not on my MVR....yet.

So Wilson keeps hauling feed at night trying to get his 4 loads in. Lots of rain this time of year. Got stuck again, but dug myself out. That wasn't a productive night. Now comes the night in question. It started out a great night. I was doing good! I was on my third load going to the farm and it wasn't quite midnight. I am thinking that I will easily get 4 loads in tonight. So I am coming up to my turn. I am going to have to make a right turn. No traffic. I get all the way over in the left hand lane of this two-lane paved road to negotiate the turn. I am turning on to a dirt road. As I am turning, it appears to be a quite narrow road. So I am tracking my steers over to the left side of this dirt road as far as I dare. I check my RS mirror to check the trailer. I am not moving fast at all. I see in the mirror that the trailer tires dip a bit and start to come back up. Then, my forward momentum ceased, and the trailer tires slide right and the entire truck rolls onto its side.

To shorten this story, once I was out, you could see that the shoulder of the road collapsed because of all the rain we had had and sucked the trailer into the ditch. The top-heavy feed trailer couldn't handle the angle and gravity took over. The black cloud struck again. I made all the appropriate phone calls notifying all the people I was suppose to notify. Passersby helped me and called the police for me. The trooper finally arrived and to add insult to injury, it was the same trooper that issued me the speeding ticket a week earlier!!! I wondered what else could happen.

The trooper looked around, took pictures, etc. I was on the phone to Safety. They wanted to know things that I couldn't give them. "Did you get a ticket?" they asked. I told them he was doing his investigation. They wanted to know the moment I got the ticket. They said that if I got a ticket, it would change a lot of things. I thought, "It sure will." Safety called me about three times during his investigation wanting to know if he issued a ticket.

He finally finished up his narrative and asked me to review it saying, "Is that what happened?" I looked it over and it appeared to be accurate in a generic kind of way. He closed out the report program and told me he was finished with me. NO TICKET! What a relief that was. I called Safety and let them know there wasn't a ticket issued. Although they said that was good, I sensed that they were disappointed...

That was my DAC accident. It took three wreckers to get that trailer out of the ditch. I might add that my supervisor spoke with Safety from the accident scene and was asking them if I was going to be given a drug test. I never was. He took me back to the mill and told me that I would be on a non-driving status until after the review. So I didn't drive all weekend and on Monday came the review. It was a teleconference call in my supervisor's office.

The people on the other end of the phone were trying to spin this scenario not in my favor. However, I had a sound reason for everything I did that night. When it appeared that they were finished with the accident, they asked me about the speeding ticket. I thought to myself what this had to do with the accident. We talked about that for a bit and then they brought up the fence post. It wasn't sounding good. I asked them what in the world could I have done to prevent that accident. They really couldn't answer me other than that they thought I made some bad decisions.

Well that pretty much ended the review and my supervisor told me to go home and he would contact me when he knew something. He called me in the afternoon and said that it was decided that an agricultural account was not for me.