Preventable Accidents

Hello all. I started driving in January. The company I was hired with, had me go through their training..then they put me with their local TEs..for 2 weeks(a week each). Now, I was OTR..I don't see how running with locals would help me with anything I might run into on the road. My first week out after that training (alone), I was sent to PA..I inevitably got stuck following my gps. Mind you I have never been to PA, so I was not familiar. I got stuck and had to call the authorities to get me out. It ended up being a preventable (fine, I get it) no citations. In the month and a half following. I got stuck in the mud a few times and needed a tow. 3 more preventables. Then my last one I hit a customers pole and knocked it sideways. I feel like I didn't get the adequate training I needed. I'm sorry this is so long winded. But I feel wronged by the company. Am I justified to fight these preventables? They let me go and now I have 5 on my record.. no one wants to hire someone with these on their record. I don't know what to do now. Someone please give me some insight. TYIA

Welcome,

I wish we could have known you in the beginning of your career instead of now.

Trying to minimize your issues or blaming the company will get you nowhere. You got yourself into several messes noone else.

Going places we have never been is a continual event. You have to be viligant and careful. Be sure of the full situation before you drive into it.

We’ve all made our share of mistakes, espically when first starting out. But you have to learn from the mistakes and try your hardest to not repeat them.

What is already done isn’t going to change. You need to realize what you learned and script it out. Apply everywhere and when you get a chance to speak to any recruiter you tell them what you learned from the past issues and assure them it won’t happen in the future.

As you already know the industry is a mess and finding a new job is difficult at best.

Wish you well in the job hunt!!

Amanda, the good news is that you are based in OKC. Lots of opportunities there. Oilfield related jobs may be a possibility. Don’t turn your nose up at any driving job you can find. Keep your CDL in use even if you have to do a CDL-B type job. Look for something local to rehabilitate yourself and learn from your mistakes. Getting stuck in the mud is somewhat accepted in oilfield work.

Five. Since. JANUARY?

Somehow I don't seem to think you understand the dire consequences that come with messing up in a semi truck.

This has nothing to do with lack of training, and everything to do with a glaring lack of ability to learn from your mistakes.

Were you "trained" by some small mom-n-pop company in Oklahoma? I have lived in Oklahoma for a few years and know how mickey-mouse things can be down there. The place seems like such an underdeveloped nation. I would have launched a driving career with a national mega carrier and perhaps receive a comprehensive level of training. Oklahoma is called the Sooner State for a reason. The sooner one gets out of there, the better. I have moved to the mid-west recently and things are not quite as mickey-mouse here.

Were you "trained" by some small mom-n-pop company in Oklahoma? I have lived in Oklahoma for a few years and know how mickey-mouse things can be down there. The place seems like such an underdeveloped nation. I would have launched a driving career with a national mega carrier and perhaps receive a comprehensive level of training. Oklahoma is called the Sooner State for a reason. The sooner one gets out of there, the better. I have moved to the mid-west recently and things are not quite as mickey-mouse here.

Hehe, I had to laugh at the Oklahoma reference. I have lived in Tulsa, Ponca City and Skiatook in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is heavily populated with red neck, aggressive type people in my experience. The Sooner I DON’T go back, the better, lol. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be guilty of stereotyping.

They Noodle for catfish in Oklahoma. If you don’t know what “noodling” is, look it up. It just might be more dangerous than truck driving.

Bruce, I gotta tell ya there is nothing wrong with rednecks!!!

I’ve been one my entire life and damn proud of it.. We are very resourceful when we need to be. Enough said!!!!!

Were you "trained" by some small mom-n-pop company in Oklahoma? I have lived in Oklahoma for a few years and know how mickey-mouse things can be down there. The place seems like such an underdeveloped nation. I would have launched a driving career with a national mega carrier and perhaps receive a comprehensive level of training. Oklahoma is called the Sooner State for a reason. The sooner one gets out of there, the better. I have moved to the mid-west recently and things are not quite as mickey-mouse here.

Hehe, I had to laugh at the Oklahoma reference. I have lived in Tulsa, Ponca City and Skiatook in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is heavily populated with red neck, aggressive type people in my experience. The Sooner I DON’T go back, the better, lol. Of course, I wouldn’t want to be guilty of stereotyping.

They Noodle for catfish in Oklahoma. If you don’t know what “noodling” is, look it up. It just might be more dangerous than truck driving.

If the particular part of America is not the culprit for lousy CDL driver training, then the trouble could just be one particular school or employer. It could also be that holding a big-rig steering wheel is not for certain individuals. In the army, I was trained only one time to back a turning tractor-trailer truck while backing toward the RIGHT-hand side of the trailer's arse-end! This is much harder, I gather, than backing to the trailer's arse-end left. Even when backing a pickup truck and a landscaping trailer or a rented U-Haul 26' with a car carrier, I always try to back left if I can before straightening everything out to shoot straight into a parking space. It's much easier to see the left corner of a trailer "jack-knifing" toward the left from the driver seat even without using mirrors. It's then easy to use mirrors on both sides when backing SLOWLY in a straight line.

Sigh. Look, training is short and not enough at just about every company big and small.

Many don't understand and or never learn that a vehicle being towed from an incident or accident results in being classified as a preventable.

For the op, she obviously didn't grasp that each time she had to be towed, it was a preventable. Unfortunately, given the freight market collapse, it's going to be difficult to overcome.

Redneck and hillbilly is a significant portion of my genealogy as well. I'm still fluent in West Virginia hillbilly and Montana redneck dialects.

There are plenty of adequate companies that train irrelevant of geographic locations.

Hello all. I started driving in January. The company I was hired with, had me go through their training..then they put me with their local TEs..for 2 weeks(a week each). Now, I was OTR..I don't see how running with locals would help me with anything I might run into on the road. My first week out after that training (alone), I was sent to PA..I inevitably got stuck following my gps. Mind you I have never been to PA, so I was not familiar. I got stuck and had to call the authorities to get me out. It ended up being a preventable (fine, I get it) no citations. In the month and a half following. I got stuck in the mud a few times and needed a tow. 3 more preventables. Then my last one I hit a customers pole and knocked it sideways. I feel like I didn't get the adequate training I needed. I'm sorry this is so long winded. But I feel wronged by the company. Am I justified to fight these preventables? They let me go and now I have 5 on my record.. no one wants to hire someone with these on their record. I don't know what to do now. Someone please give me some insight. TYIA

The importance of thorough trip planning cannot be understated. Relying on something like Google maps to route you to your destination will get you into trouble eventually... and it usually won't take very long for it to happen. Follow Google maps and you will get "stuck". It is a 100% certainty. It'll take you into a residential area, down a "trucks prohibited" road, into a 12 foot bridge... it doesn't know that you are in a semi.

I never learned route planning during my training, either, but still understood that getting the truck into a bad situation would be my own fault. I've been driving for about a year and a half now and I can say that my biggest fear is taking my truck down a road that I am not 100% sure a truck should go down.