Truck Accident In Cali

If even one potential new driver gets what we were trying to get across, I say we did our job.

If even one potential new driver gets what we were trying to get across, I say we did our job.

Hahah omg...yeah doesn't matter sit we are @$$#$$$# or not. Some with intelligence get it.

Love you lol

CHP rarely issues citations at the scene of an accident, unless witnessed by the Officer. It is usually an infraction that caused the accident, so it's usually an infraction not committed in their presence. Your state the A4 traveled so far up, almost to the cab, if you had checked your mirrors more than once, as other experienced drivers have stated, it probably wouldn't have happened. Maybe the A4's fault....MAYBE if the driver had clipped the right rear of your trailer. That scenario is sketchy too, because a Professional driver just doesn't quickly change lanes. Look multiple times, and move slowly. Minor damage to an Audi A4 after being squished against a guard rail? Hahahaha RIGHT!

Follow the Professional advise given to you by the experienced drivers who are responding to your post. Yeah and don't pull your gloves off. If you did it, you did it. Own up to it.

First of all there is NO law against passing on the right in California. Only passing on the right, on the shoulder. Secondly just because the A4 driver committed an unsafe lane change (Unlawful in California) BEHIND you, this in no way caused the accident. He traveled too far up your right side. So Sir, I know you don't speak of me not knowing how to interpret the law. As far as GENIUS, you don't get a ticket at the scene in California. In the report you'll undoubtedly be found most at fault. A ticket for sure if your DUI , suspended, not CDL , or no proof of financial responsibility (Insurance). You showed us the darkness, we showed you where to find the rainbow.

Damn, you people really surprised me with your "vigilante" response. You all ganged up on me like a bunch of piranhas. So let me respond quickly and be done with it because I'm not gonna start a back-and-forth narrative here.

Could I have prevented the accident? ABSOLUTELY. Should I have checked the mirrors throughout the whole maneuver? PROBABLY. I admitted to this to the safety director at Stevens when I met with him. Does that mean I'm at fault? ABSOLUTELY NOT! The perpetrator tried to pass me on the right, which is against Cali state law. (Yes, I looked in their statutes before I took my stance.) Also, he went into the slow-moving vehicle lane doing 70 mph. He was BEHIND me on the LEFT, which means he shot over TWO lanes. This is an unsafe lane change, also against Cali law. He ADMITTED that he speeded up INSTEAD of slowing down when he saw me make the move. So before you people eviscerate me, educate yourselves because it is amazing that some of you here with so many years of experience run your mouths without taking the time to learn the law. Also, there are DOT traffic laws which even supercede state traffic laws. The 50% rule comes to mind. (For those of you who don't know it, look it up yourselves.) Basically you GENIUSES, if I was at fault, I would have gotten the ticket.

As far as my ego and attitude, nothing wrong there. If I am wrong, I admit it. I've always been open to accountability. I stated to the cop and to the couple that I was just happy that nothing happened to them. But you guys don't know the whole story because I am not going to write a novel about the incident.

As for Stevens, they are buffoons for a lot of reasons. But you guys wouldn't know unless you worked there. And I'm referring to how things are done, not things that have happened to me. And I am gracious enough to leave the other stuff out, so as not to bash them. The fact is, I received no notification, due process or even a phone call as to the status of the case, nor their stance. This is UNPROFESSIONAL. This website is called "Trucking Truth", but that title is a fallacy as long as you have your policy of obfuscating the realities that are out there. If you are going to show the light, you have to show the darkness as well. All is not "rainbows and unicorns". Maybe this website should be called, "Trucking Half-Truths" instead.

First, yes, you guys can be a "bag of D*&KS" some times.

^ all in jest.

I read more than a few of the replies, and the only thing I sensed was a sense of entitlement from the OP, which is really sad. I've been here a little over a year and can count on 1 hand (and still have fingers left over) the times the forum has "sternly" replied to someone.

It was brought up in a safety meeting before. "You're on the interstate , in the right lane. Someone is trying to merge into traffic. You have the right of way, but this person forces themselves into the lane. Do you slow down and let them in, or do you keep going, causing them to run under your trailer?"

You're the professional.....

So glad I stayed out of this one.

For the record - Old School IS a Piranha.

Just sayin...

Rick

I think i'd rather slow. MAYBE I lose one second of time, than have the driver on the ramp hit my wheel, fender or bumper and we're both on the side of the road, and me losing my valuable time, having to explain my situation, to the Officer, then later my company, all for one second. For me I slow down, let them in safely so I don't get hit.

First, yes, you guys can be a "bag of D*&KS" some times.

^ all in jest.

I read more than a few of the replies, and the only thing I sensed was a sense of entitlement from the OP, which is really sad. I've been here a little over a year and can count on 1 hand (and still have fingers left over) the times the forum has "sternly" replied to someone.

It was brought up in a safety meeting before. "You're on the interstate , in the right lane. Someone is trying to merge into traffic. You have the right of way, but this person forces themselves into the lane. Do you slow down and let them in, or do you keep going, causing them to run under your trailer?"

You're the professional.....

For the record - Old School IS a Piranha.

Just sayin...

Well, I guess I do think it's always best to keep chomping until you get down to the bone!

Yes, perhaps, I was one of the di**s in the bag Diver mentioned, but in this case I think there was only one true "di** in the bag"; the OP. Even...so I want to publicly apologize to those of you following this for how I "went-off" in this thread Wednesday night, primarily for baiting the OP, allowing my disgust and anger with him to spill out and onto the forum pages. The “truck” doesn’t care if in a past life a driver managed 100 people, it’s irrelevant, meaningless and in this case an attempt to divert attention from the issue at hand. The OP really struck a nerve and angered me to the core by sidestepping his responsibility, so I had to step away. I get very passionate and bluntly serious when it comes to safety. I think most of us do.

With that said; I also want to back-handedly thank LionHeart for posting his unfortunate lapse in safe driving, reminding us how close we are all the time, to a potential disaster. As a result I am that much more vigilant during even a benign lane change,...thought about this thread a lot yesterday. So in a rather ironic way, LionHeart probably made us safer drivers in spite of his dogged determination to "throw out the baby with the bathwater."

At the expense of beating the same drum (and most of you already know this), we can never assume or become complacent or expect everyone around us to "do the right thing". Always assume they will "do the wrong thing" and be prepared to safely adjust. Inherent in our job as a professional; do everything in our power to proactively prevent an accident and never, never increase the risk of one no matter what law we believe is protecting us (Pat's relevant reply, brilliant). There are lot of "dead-right" people who had the law of the road on their side and never live to tell of it. We must also be committed to take full and unconditional responsibility for our truck, vigilant space management, and driving in a safe and prudent manner. We are definitely held to a higher standard, and should be. LionHeart's truck outweighed the 4-wheeler 20x, no match. The truck could have easily crushed the car like a gnat.

I also believe the forum provided LionHeart lots of incredibly valuable advice, which for whatever reason, he chose to ignore and proceeded to chide and belittle several of us for offering advice that by the way, he originally asked for. Well,...he got "it" in spades and could not tolerate the fact that no one who replied supporting his crusade against Stevens... Some of the best replies I have ever read in this forum resulted from the exchanges in this thread. Pat’s, OS' and Bud's provocative words were priceless and called out the huge gap between a professional's approach and LionHeart's approach to this. Several new folks joined in which I think is also valuable. By far my favorite “newbie” reply was offered by Jason, not yet in school, he completely summed up the situation. You should be embarrassed LionHeart, without the benefit of any trucking experience, not yet in school, Jason respectfully and effectively “dressed you down”. Props Jason! All good, for all of us...

What is disturbing though, is the underlying motivation behind LionHeart’s initial post; it was, in fact all about the money. The accident in question occurred in November, it's January. Why post now? Simple, because Stevens dinged him financially. Hit him where he lives, so to speak. This was not his first post either...he has been part of the forum for quite a while and knows how we typically respond to this style of behavior. I ask that everyone seriously think and consider this; in spite of almost killing two motorists, his post was about the money, legal positioning, and crying how he was wronged by Stevens. It wasn't about "what he did wrong", or "future prevention", or even "Holy Sh**, I almost killed someone", no. Didn't seem concerned with anything except the dang MONEY! It was about how he could recover and/or avoid paying what he now owes Stevens. That's it...nothing more. No humility, no remorse, no accountability, no positive "takeaways" or "lessons learned" from the incident, nothing like that. He revealed his true colors, and perhaps his attitude and propensity for not backing down, affected his judgment in the cab (?). There is a direct correlation. Is this the correct response and behavior from a professional driver? Draw your own conclusion. Mine is similar to Pat’s.

Again, not to beat-dead the same drum, for any of you thinking about getting into trucking, in school, or in road training...please never "assume" like LionHeart did. Learn from his example. Never become complacent and never shirk your responsibility as a professional driver and justify your lack of care and/or mistake because of someone else's mistake. Please carefully read what Pat, Bud, Brett, Old School and the rest of us wrote relevant to this incident. Basically there is total unity in the opinion of the forum. Something we should all appreciate and respect.

LionHeart, not sure if you are still lurking, but I sincerely hope you adjust your arrogant attitude, learn some humility, cut your losses (cause you are not going to win this fight), accept accountability for your actions, be grateful to Stevens for not firing you, focus on what you did wrong and above all else learn from it. Otherwise, you run the increased risk of another accident. Next time, you might not be so lucky...then, who is the real CLOWN?

Well there's a few things to consider when it comes to the type of replies you'll get from us:

1) Are you the type to take personal responsibility for your actions, or are you here to point fingers, tell lies, and place blame after you messed up? We have had many different members of our forum come here after small incidents, moderate fender benders, and even rolling a truck and those people received nothing but our best wishes and our complete support. They took full responsibility for what happened and they came here to share it with us for either moral support, to help others learn from their mistakes, or both.

Have a look at this conversation we had a while back when one of our members flipped his truck. You'll see exactly what I mean:

The Life, Death, and Resurrection Of My Truck Driving Career

If you come here trying to mislead people or you try to wrongfully place blame to cover for your own mistakes it's going to end badly. We simply won't have it and we'll fight to the bitter end to make sure our visitors get good quality, honest information. If you stand in the way of us doing that then you're certainly not going to like our reaction.

2) Are you speaking to us with the same respect we're giving you? See, sometimes we look like we're being jerks but in reality I'm here in the background deleting all the cussing, filth, and nasty insults we're getting thrown at us. I can tell you that in this thread right here there was maybe two comments from the OP that I didn't have to edit out a bunch of filth. Like when he says, "Can't you guys understand that?" what he really said was, "Are you f'in a'holes that f'in stupid that you can't get it through your thick skulls?" So I remove the filth and it comes out, "Can't you guys understand that?" and when I don't respond with the kindness of a monk after being cussed out by some idiot who almost killed two people it looks like I'm the bad guy. It happens!

3) This forum is for discussing one of the most dangerous careers you'll find anywhere. And it's not like mountain climbing or cave exploring where if something goes wrong you're the only one in trouble. In trucking you make a mistake and you kill someone else's family. So when a guy comes here lying and citing technicalities of the law that he hopes will exonerate him without taking any blame or showing any remorse for what happened it doesn't sit well with us.

Personal responsibility and the respect for those around you are the two driving forces that will hopefully lead people to make safe, smart, disciplined decisions. Showing up with an attitude like, "hey, it technically wasn't my fault so too bad for the people in the other vehicle" it doesn't sit well with us. If your company then backs you and says they'll keep you around even after a major mishap but you decide you're going to start bashing them as if they were the ones who screwed up it's again not going to sit well with us.

4) Finally, there are just entirely too many people that if you listen to their side of things have never made a mistake or been in the wrong in their lives. It's always someone else's fault. Always. And they will take everyone down to protect themselves if they have to. The OP in this case would love nothing more than to have the blame placed on the driver of the car and to then "take of his gloves" and really teach his company a lesson. He's the only one that did anything wrong here. And yet he's not only unwilling to take the blame or pay any punishment, but he'll go so far as to make others take the fall for his mistakes.

So sometimes the most important job we do is to try to force someone to face their own reality. To wake them up, shake em up a little bit, and hopefully make them see things from a perspective of personal responsibility and safety first so they don't go out there and actually kill someone the next time. We also don't want their poor perspective to rub off on others coming into the industry. No one wants a country full of truck drivers with the attitude, "If you break the law and get killed then too bad for you."

We've taken on an extremely important and difficult task - to prepare new truck drivers for life on the road. If we do our job well we're going to help a ton of people. If we do it poorly then careers are going to be ruined and people are going to get killed. I'm not about to let some clown hijack this website to make themselves look good by telling lies or making others look bad. I'd rather be considered an honest, trustworthy, and plain-spoken jerk than a friendly fraud and a charlatan. If I have to argue with someone to the bitter end to make sure our visitors aren't being misled and we're not sending people out onto the highways with a dangerous perspective then I'm always willing to do that.

So the next time you think, "Geez, these guys could be a little nicer about this whole thing" remember that there's a lot at stake here. These are life and death circumstances we're dealing with. We always try like crazy to be the nicest people we know how to be. But making sure the truth gets told and good advice gets handed out is something we're passionate about and sometimes we get a little riled up about it too. And you should be glad we do.