Unsafe Backing And Leaving Truck And Load At Terminal

Jeffrey, everybody reading this is trying to learn from it. I'm glad to hear that your time management is good. Do you usually run on recaps, or are you burning up your 70 and taking a reset? What kind of miles are you averaging each month?

Jeffrey, it's my job to tell it like it is. Sometimes I look like a really mean guy when I have to call BS on someone who is playing the "poor me" card, but if I don't do it then who will? The reality is that you screwed up a bunch of times, and each time you screwed up you made the situation worse by making even more bad decisions. Nothing that happened here was anyone's fault but your own I'm afraid, no matter how hard you try to blame everyone else and claim you're the victim in all of this. So here's the deal........

I know this might sound a bit surprising to those who are new to the industry, but there are more holes in this story than a cheese grater.

You claim your dispatcher told you to deliver the load no matter what it takes, even if you're out of hours? That's total BS. That's grounds for automatic firing and no one is going to do that, especially with electronic logs. Get serious.

You claim your safety manager said it was an unsafe backing situation? That's also BS. There are tons of super difficult backing situations all over the country. There were already a ton of trucks on the docks - you said so yourself. So everyone else managed to get in there safely. The only thing dangerous about this was your backing. You ran into something and you also dented the fairing on your truck. There's no excuse for either of those, especially from someone who has been out there for 7 months already. You've backed a truck probably 400 - 500 times by now. Come on.

Then neither the yard dog nor another driver with your company would help you? What the hell did you say to these people that no one was willing to give you a hand for a minute? That's not the way it normally goes out there. It's never difficult to find a little help if you ask nicely.

Then you parked the truck and quit while under a load?

I mean, come on man. You ran into something, then you dented the truck, then you abandoned a load, and you don't seem to be able to get along with anyone you come in contact with. Yet we're supposed to believe you're this innocent, friendly, hard working guy who just can't get a break from anyone?

Please.

I got so frustrated by them telling me to basically violate safety

No one told you to violate safety. They told you to do your job safely and you screwed it up. Then you made it worse by quitting under a load. Now you're here hoping we're going to believe you're the victim in all of this?

Do you know what a certain type of driver does to cover his ass every time he screws up? He plays the safety card.......

I told him I would not risk safety

You know who this reminds me of? Our ol' buddy Abe:

Truck Driver Too Tired To Drive

Remember "poor Abe" who was just too tired to drive and cared deeply about safety but his ruthless dispatcher tried to make him drive when he had only had 20 hours of off duty time and was still tired???? Yeah right. That's the story he tried to tell. Poor guy. Just an honest, kind, hard working guy trying to be safe but was being abused and mistreated by everyone around him. That's if you believe his story.

Sorry Jeffrey, but I can't think of anything you handled the right way in this situation, nor can I think of anything that anyone else did wrong. You just screwed up and then you just kept making it worse. You took a tough backing situation, got flustered, ran into something, got more flustered, dented the truck, got more flustered, and quit your job while under a load.

To be honest, I feel bad for ya. That was an epically bad series of decisions and we've all had days like that. Something goes wrong, we get frustrated, then start making more bad decisions and our day just spirals downward. In the end we just want to kick ourselves in the ass for handling things all wrong.

You live and you learn. Get another job and move forward. Learn from it. This is a valuable lesson, and fortunately no serious damage was done and no one was hurt. I'm sure you'll remember this for a long time and hopefully you'll be a better driver for it.

The most important thing I'd like to see you do is take personal responsibility and own your mistakes. I'm pretty disappointed that you're trying to blame dispatch, the yard dog, and other drivers for doing this to you when in reality you did all of this yourself. Taking responsibility for your own actions and decisions would be a big step forward.

If it was your very first time visiting this shipper/receiver, you must use Google Maps (Satellite) to get a clear birds-eye view of what the docking situation is like. Otherwise you have no opportunity to evaluate how to negotiate something tight like this, until you are actually there, potentially under duress.

Preparation is about understanding all the details and at least having a ridinentary plan how-to handle close-quarter maneuvering. You went into this customer blindly.

I sucked at backing as a newbie. No lie, i spent a lot of money on reserved parking and.... tipping yard dogs. Yep, for $5 to $10 a yard dog will drop that in a minute. Heck, i always kept cold gatorades and candy bars to give out to customers. Saving $10 cost your job, you have an accident and abandonment on your DAC and ruined your career.

Am i the only one who ever tipped yard dogs? However, by 7 months i was going really good cause i practiced in a lot of empty truck stops.

my FM would have calles the customer to arrange for the yard dog to drop it.

My question is this a Northeast regional account? or a dollar general? Just another example of why the Northeast or DG can be really hard for newbies.

I'm just adding in my experience of running out my clock under dispatch. (Driving for Swift)

Early in my career (5 years ago) i realized I could not make the delivery time with what was left on my 14 hour clock. Messaged my DM , who really did say to continue with delivery.

But instead I pulled into a truck stop and shut down when my hours ran out. Messaged my DM on my status. A few hours later a Swift bobtail pulled up and told me to drop the trailer, she was taking it on right then.

Dropped the trailer, I continued my 10 hour break. Later I got a new dispatch, never heard a word about the incident and my trucking life went on.

Errol makes a great point. These big companies do this all the time. Often there will be available drivers sitting at a nearby terminal waiting on repairs to their truck. I've been called on several times in this same scenario. I'm sitting there chilling in the terminal and the manager pops his head in the driver's lounge asking, "Hey Old School, could you do me a favor? We've got a driver at a truck stop about 15 miles from here. He's out of hours. Here's the keys to truck 52489 - if you'd go grab his trailer and deliver that load the 120 miles it needs to go, I'll pay you 350 dollars." I say, "Deal!" And the load gets delivered safely, legally, and timely Nobody's the worse for it, and I'm way better off for being available and willing.

Am i the only one who ever tipped yard dogs? However, by 7 months i was going really good cause i practiced in a lot of empty truck stops.

Hell no! There was one time I just couldn't make the back at a Walmart DC drop lot. I was super tired and it was taking me forever, and the lot was tight. I offered the yard dog money but he did it for free lol.

I sometimes wish I had been a yard hostler somewhere tougher than a wide open Target DC. Might have made some extra money haha.

When I pulled reefers I tipped them regularly. 5 bucks buys a lot of cooperation

So I may not be a crowd favorite for the decisions I have made in the past with my career, and some I may make in the future. But I have been in this situation sort of (only my FM never told me to deliver no matter what). I delivered to a brand new facility in NE once building had been open for maybe 2 weeks, no images on google nothing for me to go off of. same sort of set up like the guy had here 3 or 4 docks mostly ok to get into the last one though right on the edge of a 10 foot drop off. probably looked worse than it did, what made it difficult was there was still a huge construction dumpster right in front of the spot so I could not get straight in front of the spot I had to do the blindside back. and it had been raining for the last day so the ground around the place was soaked and I was hoping I didn't get stuck. it took me some time I did about 100 G.O.A.L.s and got in there. My point being that every situation is adaptable, you just have to slow down, think it through logically, and if it means go slow then go slow.

Secondly I was making a run back to SLC one time for two drops in one day. well I made a huge mistake stopped for coffee and a snacks ad to wake up I was doing one of those drive through the night runs. and I locked my keys in the truck. so 3 hours off later I'm back in the truck, and I lost those three hours so I could not make the second delivery. I think I might have been able to if it was a 8/2 split. but I cant remember. told my FM he was not happy wanted to know why I told him I made a bonehead mistake. and he told me just to bring it in. they repowered the load.

I tell you all of this to make this point. I was an ok driver. Nothing great I had to have a handful of delivery dates adjusted, some for maintenance, some for weather, or other things outside of my control like when Breyers entire company had their network go down and could not print out any BOL. so every truck was stuck for about 15 hours. they wouldn't even put us in the doors until they could confirm the system was going to come back up. But I always owned up to my bad decisions. None of them ever came back to bite me in the butt, I may have been getting less miles, who knows, but they never held it over my head or talked to me in a combative way. Just like with shippers and receivers treat your dispatch with the golden rule. Everyone has a bad day maybe that was his/hers.