Terminated By Schneider

Story: after 6 months of driving dedicated for Schneider, My teammate and I switched to OTR. We received a new Freightliner and shortly thereafter began registering frequent stability control critical events. Previously I had only 1 stability control event in 6 months. I registered approximately 12 in one month of driving in the new truck, during which time my DBL quit and the new DBL issued me a CTE. I registered 5 more thereafter and was just terminated, 3 weeks after the CTE was issued, without recourse. Part of me is relieved to be done with Schneider and their bull**** but my question is is there any appeal I can make to the company? And if not, how will this affect future employment prospects?

Hello and welcome.

I wish you would.have come to us earlier.... like before you racked up a dozen critical events in one month. And an additional 5.more.

Honestly, that is an insane amount. And I had a truck that previously rolled so the rollover sensored was greatly increased in sensitivity. With that said, did you not question to have the shop.adjust the sensitivity? What recourse did you take to rectify your driving? Once you knew what triggered it, you could.simply avoid it.

Safety features on trucks are not BS. You took turns too fast for that truck and didnt take the time to learn what speed was safe.

Termination will show up on your DAC so getting hired may be a challenge but not impossible depending on the rest of your record. Accidents or tickets?

You got 17...how many did your teammate get?

Hello and welcome.

I wish you would.have come to us earlier.... like before you racked up a dozen critical events in one month. And an additional 5.more.

Honestly, that is an insane amount. And I had a truck that previously rolled so the rollover sensored was greatly increased in sensitivity. With that said, did you not question to have the shop.adjust the sensitivity? What recourse did you take to rectify your driving? Once you knew what triggered it, you could.simply avoid it.

Safety features on trucks are not BS. You took turns too fast for that truck and didnt take the time to learn what speed was safe.

Termination will show up on your DAC so getting hired may be a challenge but not impossible depending on the rest of your record. Accidents or tickets?

You got 17...how many did your teammate get?

I believe 9? More than half were occurring on straight aways or roads with no obvious curvature. I would like to point out that we never had a problem until getting this new truck and our driving style had not changed. We appealed to our DBL but he made it very clear that he did not care and dismissed any allegations of faulty equipment. I was completely blind sided by this.

Ok, I don't get this. For one, as Rainy pointed out, why didn't you ask the shop to take a look at it if you thought there was something wrong with the truck?

For two, DBL's don't fire people and they're not the authority in a situation like this. After all of those incidents you never once spoke with anyone from the safety department about it? You didn't get any warnings or anything? No phone calls or messages over the Qualcomm? Just suddenly out of the blue you were fired?

For three, the truck's GPS will record the exact location of the truck when these events occurred. If you were getting these events in areas and circumstances that were obviously not prone to this type of event, like travelling at highway speed on a straight highway, the company would be able to look this up and see there was a pattern with it.

Though I haven't heard of anyone getting a truck with a faulty sensor, it's entirely possible. But where was your head during all of this? If you believed the truck was the problem, why weren't you contacting the shop and having conversations with the safety department?

Once again I don't feel like we're getting even 25% of the honest, complete story here but I'd like to hear some answers to those questions.

For two, DBL's don't fire people and they're not the authority in a situation like this. After all of those incidents you never once spoke with anyone from the safety department about it? You didn't get any warnings or anything? No phone calls or messages over the Qualcomm? Just suddenly out of the blue you were fired?

Schneider brings drivers in for extra training after 2-3 critical events, at least in my own experience.

I did have two critical events when I first for my new truck, and I went in for extra training and the OSR guy explained what was different from my old truck and why it happens, and since then I haven't had any problems. Both of them happened at low speeds usually going 8-12MPH, which is generally a okay speed on most turns but my problem was hard start and RPMs got a bit high before shifting. Either way, I learned my lesson.

Christian said: " Part of me is relieved to be done with Schneider and their bull**** "

Christian, I don't agree at all that Schneider is a bull**** company. In fact, just the opposite. And not for a second do I believe that your termination was Schneider's fault. I don't know what a CTE is, but it sounds like it's a good thing NOT to know.

When I went in for my 90 day review, I had registered only one critical event. None since. The instructor who did my review was able to pinpoint the exact location of the event and pulled it up on Google street view. He also had my speed recorded for the event, 37 mph. (btw, it was a stability event, not hard braking) I figured I must have taken an exit too fast. However, there wasn't an exit anywhere near to the spot where the CE occurred. I was in Texas on one of those long, straight, flat 4 lane highways. And get this: He even had a record of the weather conditions when it happened. Dry, sunny, calm winds. Wow, I was amazed by all the info they have on just about everything that goes on out on the road. So just to make a long story endless, my one critical event remains a mystery to this very day.

My educated guess is that you and your teammate were reckless to have registered all these events and I'm surprised Schneider let it go on for as long as they did. If you are prone to having critical events, you don't even need a CDL. Just join a Rodeo and do bull riding.

I got a new guy question for you. Someone explain this critical event thing to me and what exactly causes it and how do companies treat it? My truck, a 2018 Cascadia, has an accident avoidance sensor that flashes red and at slow speeds at least can cause braking or slow down to occur. Is that what you are talking about? If so I have had it go off about 4 times in my truck, the first was turning in tight quarters at a loading dock area and I was close to a brick wall, the 2nd time a little red sports car cut in pretty close in front of me on the interstate.

I got a new guy question for you. Someone explain this critical event thing to me and what exactly causes it and how do companies treat it? My truck, a 2018 Cascadia, has an accident avoidance sensor that flashes red and at slow speeds at least can cause braking or slow down to occur. Is that what you are talking about? If so I have had it go off about 4 times in my truck, the first was turning in tight quarters at a loading dock area and I was close to a brick wall, the 2nd time a little red sports car cut in pretty close in front of me on the interstate.

Joseph, that's a real good question. There are a number of people here who are technical experts like G-Town, Rick and others. So you will get some great feedback on your question, I'm sure.

I've learned a little about critical events. I understand that there are several kinds. Stability events (like taking a ramp too fast, swerving, or even a major lane departure where one side of the truck drops off the pavement). Then there are the 'hard breaking' critical events. Pretty much self explanatory.

Companies are justifiably concerned about critical events and usually want to know why. Many times the forward facing camera will allow them to evaluate the event. (My understanding is that a critical event triggers the camera, someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Critical event monitoring is a way for companies to get careless or reckless drivers either in for re-training or off the road completely.

Ok, I don't get this. For one, as Rainy pointed out, why didn't you ask the shop to take a look at it if you thought there was something wrong with the truck?

For two, DBL's don't fire people and they're not the authority in a situation like this. After all of those incidents you never once spoke with anyone from the safety department about it? You didn't get any warnings or anything? No phone calls or messages over the Qualcomm? Just suddenly out of the blue you were fired?

For three, the truck's GPS will record the exact location of the truck when these events occurred. If you were getting these events in areas and circumstances that were obviously not prone to this type of event, like travelling at highway speed on a straight highway, the company would be able to look this up and see there was a pattern with it.

Though I haven't heard of anyone getting a truck with a faulty sensor, it's entirely possible. But where was your head during all of this? If you believed the truck was the problem, why weren't you contacting the shop and having conversations with the safety department?

Once again I don't feel like we're getting even 25% of the honest, complete story here but I'd like to hear some answers to those questions.

This is a completely transparent account of events.

We did ask the shop. In fact, we brought the truck in twice before they actually fixed our adaptive cruise control, which was not working. They could not even diagnose that. The mechanics said nothing about the ESC and I don’t believe they even looked into it.

I never spoke to anyone besides my DBL. The first I spoke to him on the phone, he issued the CTE, which is a 30 day “probation” type thing. If performance did not improve, I was to be terminated. I explained that I wasn’t sure what was triggering these events but that was largely ignored. He continued to contact me after further critical events, up until he informed me I was to be terminated.

We were routed through our OC briefly and we sat with him and went through about 5 separate incidents, where we analyzed the exact GPS location. I personally felt that this largely exonerated us, and that he confirmed this with us, because those pinpointed images showed fairly straight roads.

This is my first company, and I had no idea how to proceed with this issue.I don’t know how I should have handled it, largely because I assumed that it was a hardware problem or that the company would work with me to find a solution or that there would be some type of escalation to remedial training prior to termination, but this was not the case. I can’t help but feel this wasn’t handled by Schneider appropriately.

This video shows an example of many of the stability controls we received. Crucially, my team mate and did not have an issue with getting stability controls for our first 6 months of driving, information that Schneider would have been privy to and you would think would have had some bearing on how they proceeded with this.