First Ding :(

Here at.the truck stop, pulled out of spot which was a little tight I pulled left a little to give myself clearance on the right, pulled out and backed up to cut a little harder to make sure I had room. Got out and looked and I had cleared the truck on my right by a mile, but when I started to move forward and get all the way out of the slot, I heard it happen.

Ended up that the tail of my trailer swung out and hit the guy to my left, pushed his mirror back and broke the spot mirror and knocked some of those chrome lug caps off his right front tire and put a dent in my trailer.

This sucks...

We've ALL been there!! Mine happened 2 days solo, after already being stressed after running around Chicago all day.

Don't beat yourself up too much. Companies expect us rookies to make these little mistakes. Document everything. Take plenty of pictures. Communicate with your safety department.

And whatever you do, DONT dwell on it. Learn from your mistake and move on. Trust me, it can make for a miserable time if you dwell on it.

I always pull straight out of spots as far as possible. My thinking is if the person next to you got into the spot, then there is enough room for you to get out without turning. But always pull as far forward as possible. If you have to stop and back up slightly to make more room, that's fine.

Oh no! I'm so sorry, Sambo!! Hope your day gets better.

Sorry Sambo, that sucks! I'm afraid of doing this same thing so if I'm not sure of my tail swing I park that sucker blocking the whole aisle and GOAL. Kudos for keeping your windows open and the noise down so you could hear it!

I didn't realize at first how common it is for us newbies to have accidents, but now that I've been a member on here for a little while I've watched almost every single one of us (including myself) hit something. Don't beat yourself up. Just learn from it and move on :)

Good luck!

That sucks but as was mentioned already, don't dwell on it. Everybody makes mistakes, it's called being human. As a quick tip, watch your mirrors on the way out and don't start cutting the wheel until the center of your trailer tandems are even with the bumper of the vehicle next to you. Unless your tandems are tucked all the way up or you're really jacking it around to make your turn, you'll clear every time.

Sambo, we all understand how you feel.

Just keep moving forward and put it behind you. At least no one got hurt or maimed.

That type of accident is extremely common for new drivers. Just take what you can learn from it and "keep on trucking."

Just look back on this incident in a few years down the road and laugh. I am glad to hear no one was hurt

My ego is maimed lol. There goes my accident free first year. Start my goal for 1 million miles accident free all over again :/

Robert, my tandems are slid all the way forward. The last load I was on was loaded in such a way that I had to slide the tandems forward all the way and move my fifth wheel up one slot to be legal on my drives.

Unloaded that load and got another load that was only 19000lbs, so I just left the tandems where they were since it was so light I wasn't worried about weight. Also, I was coming out of California, so I had to have 41 foot axle spread anyway.

Note to self...move axles back when you don't need them to be all the way forward.

Dispatcher was OK with it, just said I'll have to go back to the terminal and do a non dot incident drug test and will have to sit down with safety. Still, doesn't make me feel any better, I hate making bone head mistakes.

Thanks all. I'm trying to refocus off of this and use it for learning experience.

The slot I was coming out of was a 45 degree pull through. If any of you have been to the petro in Deming, NM. You know which I'm talking about. There is only about 3/4 truck length between rows, maybe slightly less. My learning experience, aside from not pulling so far left when coming out of a slot...and keeping my tandems further back, is to simply park on the back of the lot next time, where there is straight in backup parking and plenty of room in front for a normal pull out.

You dinged... I ripped my tandems off!!!! Had to transfer my fully loaded product to a new trailer.

First year accident free is unrealistic and ego deflating. You'll learn to identify which spots are easier for YOu. What is easy for you might be hard for me. Some of these older TS are made for 35ft trailers and can be really really tight

Hang in there.