Don't Ruin Your Career

(Long read ahead!)

I'm a recently graduated student that has accumulated around 6months under his belt.

Within those six months I've successfully graduated training with flying colors, traveled from coast to coast and seem my fair share of various experiences. I was introduced into truck driving around the worst time of the year. My first load with a mentor was to be taken up to Denver from Dallas as a bad winter storm was rolling through Colorado and heading south. I was still incredibly green when I was introduced to roads covered in snow and ice creating slippery slopes that could end anyone's career in an instant that was idiotic enough to challenge them. We still made it in one piece with my mentor's careful observations. I learned a lot from him regarding the dangers of the road and swore that I would commit to being observant and dedicated with keeping myself and others safe; yet it seemed as if I wasn't observant enough.

I rode strong for five months as a solo driver, burning my clock down every week and making good progress. I would consistently run 6-7 weeks at a time. It was on my third run that I began to grow stressed and eager. I was beginning to dread the idea of traveling the roads in the dead of winter, yet I pushed myself and still went on with it. It was only my second week when I wanted to begin going home. I requested home time with my dispatch, but they refused. Instead, I was given an opportunity to run few thousand miles that would take my from Denver to Houston, then back to Denver to drop and follow up to Utah. Two weeks later, I was finishing up and heading into Wyoming. My trip through Casper and beyond was periled by yet another bad storm. A few sites with wreckage of former truck drivers littered the sides of the highways as monuments to nature's bad temper. Seeing a lot of this and experiencing it made me grow anxious. I wanted to go home, but was forced to proceed to Wyoming when only more bad weather was occurring.

I arrived at the yard just on time. A storm recently rolled through the area and the majority of the lot was scattered with junk and a lot of mud. Without considering what could happen, which was abnormal of me, I latched onto my trailer only to discover that I was stuck. I spun my wheels a few times hoping that I would get some traction, but I sunk deeper. I only continued to panic without any rational thought and only made the situation worse. My fairings were damaged because my drives sunk over a foot into mud. Of course, my company counted it as an incident.

I was upset and pretty shaken. I had already lost a considerable amount of time from having my tractor pulled and was in a hurry. I was to travel east from where I was into Illinois and didn't have much time for error. Forecast claimed that my trip through a pass and onto I-70 would be clear, but I was greeted by an entirely different beast reaching the summit. A rogue storm had claimed the mountains, making it dangerous to travel down. I simply had to until it had cleared which threw me behind even more. I finally reached I-70 several hours later during the morning. The roads traveling into a particular town where completely iced. I reduced my speed and carefully drove to the next exit where there was a truck stop for me to shut down in.

The exit that I was approaching had sleet on it. I went into it just a little too fast(around 15mph). I was gently applying the brakes when my tractor was suddenly propelled to the side of the road. My trailer had failed to brake and had snapped around to force me off the road. It resulted in a jackknife, a damaged radiator, and one side of my tractor crumpled. Amazingly, there was zero damage to the trailer besides a few scuffs. I was pulled out an hour later and then shamefully puttered my damaged tractor into a parking spot at the truck stop right next to it. Home sick and struck with grief and fear, I was confined to that small town for a week and a half. At the end, I received the call that I was being terminated.

Do I blame the weather?; no. Do I blame my dispatchers for pushing me?; no! I blame the fact that I stressed and pushed myself into a dangerous situation. I've robbed myself of a potentially great future. I've set for the past several months working a full-time job and being shot down by every Bob, John, and **** in the state. If I could change anything, I would've simply refused those loads to Wyoming. Stress and inconsiderate actions drove me to where I am. I hope that someone can read this and never let it drive them to that point either.

Do not drive if you're stressed, the weather is inclement, or if something just feels wrong. Chances are you may regret it down the line.

Christopher....you didn't really do yourself in. In the eyes of that company, yeah,maybe. But in all reality...if that company valued their drivers, their equipment, and their freight, they would have let you make the call to shut down where you knew you needed to. As owner operators, we told dispatch that if it was bad enough to chain up, it was time to park, period. WE valued ourselves, our equipment, and our load..Our winter mantra was " Hot freight cools off real fast in the ditch"...It doesn't matter how much experience you have. Bad weather is just that....bad weather. Sure, you can go a long time and get to thinking that you are so good that you won't possibly slide into the ditch, or spin out and take out a few 4 wheelers...but reality will set in when its your turn, and it happens to you. I respect a driver who knows when its time to park...NOT because he thinks he doesn't have the experience to run the bad roads...but because he has the common sense to not risk his life and that of others on the road......

I'm glad you didn't get hurt. I learned mountain driving on I-70. Some of those areas are reeeeally tricky. I'm just using the following area as an example because I don't know where you had your accident, but ... traveling West, on that downgrade, just as you go into Idaho Springs is really dicey, even in the summer. At the bottom of the grade, just before that town, that stretch of road is also a near 90' turn - so down and left ...ugh. In the summer, just about anyone can take that turn at 65-85mph in a personal vehicle but in the snow, a tractor trailer would have to crawl through it. Some parts of the freeway, near Vail have these grooves in the road that pull your tires in and pull your tractor-trailer into whatever direction they want you to go. If you fight them, you can flip a trailer. You have to ride them out. It's a little freaky. Going up to Eisenhower Tunnel and then West of it into Dillon is also dicey and requires a lot of care. If you're pulling hazmats and Loveland Pass is opened, Eisenhower Tunnel does not allow you to drive through. You must take Loveland pass instead. I haven't driven it with a tractor-trailer, but I was a ride-along for it. I've heard it requires nerves of steel until you get more experienced.

A friend of mine was one of the original CDOT engineers who was instrumental in designing I-70 when the project began 25-30 years ago. It took them 10 years to complete. They designed it to maintain the integrity of the canyons and mountains, with the split highway around them while expanding the traffic capacity of the road. This they did, instead of cutting away all the beauty of the mountain-sides. I know they made it as safe as possible but never-the-less, it's dangerous and risky for truckers, as the grades are long and steep. I received a lot of criticism from my head trainer a few weeks ago, for only wanting to ride along, observe, but not drive the night I went on line-haul to Grand Junction and back with another driver, but I was adamant about my level of alertness, with that night only being my 3rd night on the night-shift. Having read your story, I am now glad I declined to drive and took the criticism rather than risking a mishap. The roads were clean and it was in the middle of August, but I wanted to learn by observing, how to handle those random grooves in the road, created by trucks using chains. I think they're worse in the summer than when they're covered with snow, but even the trainer driving that night said they were terrifying.

Colorado is a different animal when it comes to weather and roads because on one day you'll have a blizzard, the next day the roads will be mostly dry with the sun shining at 50'F, but then the following night, remaining snow might have melted during the day, then re-frozen at nightfall. 15 mph isn't that bad of a speed but I wasn't there. I don't know if you had chains or what your company policy was about decision-making once you're in the thick of it but I am finding that as a driver, you have to be fairly stalwart when it comes to defending your decision-making against the bureaucrats behind the desk, with no CDL experience because they simply don't understand what it's like. In my short 5 weeks of experience as a student-employee, I've already encountered a couple of situations where the terminal manager questioned what I did, here and there, and I later realized that he was the one who didn't know what he was talking about, not I. And since then, I've decided that the next time someone challenges me, asking, "Why are you slowing down when the speed limit is this ..." or "Why did you do that," without being disrespectful, my answer is going to be formed in my mind on the premise that I am the one behind the wheel, I am the one with the CDL, not you, Mr. Boss, and I am the one who has to make the responsible decisions on the road. After all, it isn't just their truck, load, and employee at risk but other drivers on the road, too. Not that I'm going to answer in a snotty or holier-than-thou tone, but I've already seen where the dispatchers are under pressure to push the agenda from above, they have to keep a lot of people happy, and they will push the limits of the drivers as far as they can and the terminal manager is running the whole show, trying to keep his clients happy. But there are times when these leaders have to accept the fact that this or that load/delivery simply could not be made based on the conditions of the road or a decision I may have made, in the name of safety and prevention. In the end, we drivers are the ones who get blamed for the accident, therefore we drivers should also be respected for deciding not to take the risk at hand. I think it's more the nature of their job as managers and dispatchers, rather than their disregard for us as drivers, really, that makes them push us; but I now know that at times, we have to stand our ground, whether the result was an accident or a non-accident situation.

I do know that Brett always says, never base your decision to stay on the road on whether or not there are other drivers out there because there will always be some crazy dude out there trying to beat the storm...

Again, while I'm glad you at least went home in one piece, I'm sorry you had all this misfortune.

-mountain girl

Christopher....you didn't really do yourself in. In the eyes of that company, yeah,maybe. But in all reality...if that company valued their drivers, their equipment, and their freight, they would have let you make the call to shut down where you knew you needed to. As owner operators, we told dispatch that if it was bad enough to chain up, it was time to park, period. WE valued ourselves, our equipment, and our load..Our winter mantra was " Hot freight cools off real fast in the ditch"...It doesn't matter how much experience you have. Bad weather is just that....bad weather. Sure, you can go a long time and get to thinking that you are so good that you won't possibly slide into the ditch, or spin out and take out a few 4 wheelers...but reality will set in when its your turn, and it happens to you. I respect a driver who knows when its time to park...NOT because he thinks he doesn't have the experience to run the bad roads...but because he has the common sense to not risk his life and that of others on the road......

-Starcar

RightON, Starcar! What SHE said!

-mountain girl

I've said it a few times as has others, "no freight is worth your life or career...." I agree with star, if its time to chain, its time to nap.. ...

To me it seams they pushed you to much, I would have told them it's to dangerous if that didn't work then talk to safety and if that didn't work, go up the ladder and if all else fails shut it down, when safe head to nearest terminal and hand over keys.. A company that doesn't respect its drivers and not let them be safe or get home time is not worth it.

Christopher, you're going to get another chance in trucking. It may not be with the company of your choice, but you'll get back out there. Just apply like crazy everywhere you can and follow up diligently with phone calls. Right now we're in the busiest time of the year so companies are hiring like crazy. There is no better time than the present. By November the hiring will slow considerably and companies will raise their standards for a few months because they can. So a company might take you now that might not take you a few months from now. So take advantage of that.

You can Apply For Truck Driving Jobs With One Application right here at TruckingTruth.

As far as the chain of events that led up to the accident....there really was no chain of events. You were simply trucking in the winter and everything went as well as can be expected until you took a slick turn a little too fast and touched your brakes in the middle of it. So don't overthink it like, "Geez, if I would have made a different decision a few weeks ago none of this would have happened." That's not the way to look at it. Trucking is a moment-to-moment existence. You do everything you know how to do to survive each moment out there. That's life for every driver in America. Sometimes we make great decisions or we get lucky, sometimes not so much.

Also, keep in mind....almost all of the worst accidents I have ever come across were in the summer on beautiful sunny days in light traffic. So the idea that avoiding bad weather will more or less keep you out of trouble is a myth. Millions of things can get you in trouble out there. Bad weather is only one of them.

If you still want to be in trucking, in my mind it's simply a matter of brush yourself off and keep making phone calls until you get your next opportunity. What's done is done. Forget about it and move forward. It's not that big of a deal. Right now the highways have plenty of drivers who have rolled trucks, hit bridges, gotten hit by trains, and smashed four-wheelers to bits. They all found second chances and your situation is nothing compared with theirs. So your trucking career is only over if you want it to be over. Otherwise you'll just have to diligently pursue your next opportunity and get back out there.

Also, keep in mind....almost all of the worst accidents I have ever come across were in the summer on beautiful sunny days in light traffic. So the idea that avoiding bad weather will more or less keep you out of trouble is a myth. Millions of things can get you in trouble out there. Bad weather is only one of them.

-Brett Aquila

Having been involved in Emergency Medical Services, it is absolutely true that the worst accidents happen and the higher volumes of accidents happen on clear, sunny days. It is believed that in good weather, drivers generally let down their guard on these days.

-mountain girl