And Then I Hit A Low Underpas...

Today I got off on the wrong exit my GPS led me astray and I came upon a low underpass... Whih I hit vey gently. And smashed up the reefer on my box truck. I wasnt sure if it was high enough so I was trying to pull up close enough to get out and check but I misjudged where my reefer was and I smashed the front corner up. Now Im at Market Basket in Andover Mass hoping they take my freight since my box may not be under 40degrees. So I was wondering, now that I shated my stupid move of the day, how many of you have done something stupid like this? I hope Im not alone.

Susannah, every rookie driver encounters these kind of moments - I'm sorry you actually made the contact with the overpass. You definitely want to make a goal of not hitting anything as a rookie, but hopefully you can survive this incident. The hardest part of this career at the beginning is getting in and out at your receivers and shippers. You've really got to be on top of your game at point A and B.

Trust me, if you're thinking you are the only one who has made such a boneheaded mistake you are greatly uninformed. Let this experience be a constant reminder of how important it is to stay on track and how easily you can do considerable damage when panic and fear start taking control.

Wishing you the best in your career.

"My GPS led me astray?"

You didn't blindly follow your GPS did you?

I am sorry that you had to experience this and hope all works out for you. In the end you learned a very important lesson, GPS is nothing more than a tool we use. The only devices we can fully rely on are our brains and eyes. We use all the tools at our disposal, but have to rely on what we see in front of us. Always drive slow enough amd leave enough distance to come to a stop if the situation ahead calls for it.

We all make mistakes while we are learning and guess what, we're all still learning! I have been lucky in that I have not hit anything but I have found myself on no truck routes and having to negotiate some very tight situations both forward and backwards due to rushing and not relying on the information my eyes were giving me amd blindly following company navigation.

Again I hope all works out for you and I am glad you and nobody else were hurt.

The tough thing about b truck ltl that I was told by my instructor in school is that the old hands know when and why to cheat the bridge height. I was told a story by him about his first day on a new route where a driver said you 'can' take such and such a route fully loaded as long as you don't return to base the same way .

Sorry for you're stress...hope it works out ok for you

Man that sucks! I haven't hit anything (on the road) but I have had my share of rookie problems. I don't if you saw my post a while ago but I've backed into something at the warehouse, I've gone by an inspection station resulting in a fine, and I've had trailer come off my truck (luckily not on the road). Point being i think we have rookie mistakes to learn from and we must learn! Hopefully you recover from this and move forward.

By the way did you end up going to NTI? I remember a while back you were going to

Well to me there's a huge difference between "hitting a bridge" and "easing up to one slowly and accidentally nudging it". So just that alone assures you that there are tons and tons of people who have done much worse things - and not just rookies! My sister works at a company where a 20 year veteran just got hit by a train - totally his fault all the way and it never should have happened.

So mistakes happen to everyone at all levels of trucking. But the key is to keep your mistakes little ones.

Hopefully the company will understand that you obviously were doing your best to be careful and you didn't just "gun it and pray" or ignore the signs or anything. So it certainly wasn't an egregious error by any means.

First question is what kind of GPS are you using? If it not a truck gps then you better go get one.

Mistakes happen. What matters is What did ya learn from it? Hopefully you learned not to follow a GPS blindly. While it's not mandatory you might want to seriously consider keeping a tape measure with you at all times. If you drive different trucks each days make sure you KNOW the height of it right down to the very last centimeter. Measure the front corner of the truck near the refer and the back corner of the box. Know the height of the box truck you will be driving that day.

My boss was pretty cool about it. The damage was fairly minimal considering since I was easing up to it and nudged it. Mostly cosmetic. And the cops werent involved. Oddly enough my boss has decided to put me in a big rig and send me to NCY. Im going with a guy with 4 months experience. Now I know Im 13'6" and thats that. As to the GPS I wasnt using a rruck gps however there qas a truck behind me when the incident happened whos truck gps told him to take the same route. Hes 13'6". It was odd. And I wasnt followig the gps blindly. It was the only bigger road in the area wih outgoing WAYYY out of the way. Also oddly enough I was told to take some really small residential roads to get back on teack and not two streets over there were tons od signs for the truck route I needed. Cleaely Im not the only rrucker whos been down there. And yes Heavy C I did go to NTI and I loves every minute there. I was a bit of a teachers pet.

When did you get out of there because I stopped by there a while back and was talking briefly to one of the female students there. She was a heavy equipment operator before that. That wasn't you was it?