DAC And Preventable Incidents

I'll be brief,

I had two minor screwups over the last 13 months.

First was parking near trees during training at a shopping mall during my first month. A low hanging branch rubbed the top of the trailer but did very minimal damage. I was driving so obviously I accepted responsibility even though my gut told me otherwise on that spot. Lesson learned.

Second was at a tight facility in Taber, AB Canada at a Lamb Weston. Ridiculously tight spots but I digress. Tried to get a good angle on a back and had to reset multiple times to give myself enough nose room. Long story short, I lost sight of my bulkhead for just long enough to rub a trailer reflector on a cattleguard. Again, my fault as, despite my best efforts, failed to maintain awareness on that point. No damage to cattleguard and adjacent driver agreed to handshake it. But having integrity, I still reported to safety and took pictures.

Was told both times neither of these incidents would appear on my DAC report due to their minor nature. I never even lost my safety penny.

Now fast forwarding a bit, I am currently hired with a new company getting ready to start in two days. Did all my background work, clean MVR , PSP, and drug. However I received a prompt about those two incidents on my DAC report that, supposedly, were not being reported. I talked to my recruiter and she laughed it off and claimed companies abuse that report all the time. So, yeah, that is nice for now. But I want to eventually settle into a local job a couple years down the line. How screwed am I from these hiccups? What can I do to help scoop some of the crap out of my reputation? I'm obviously not going to dispute them as they are my fault. That said, 7 years is a long time to live with that kind of stain. Do I have any recourse to make myself more attractive to potential future employers?

Anyhow, I'm grateful that this new gig is being super cool and understanding.

As always, brutal honest opinions and expert wisdom is appreciated.

Thanks!

No, itcwill be on there for awhile. You could challenge it through HireRight, but you wrote that these actually did occur. If you had stayed with that company, I'd bet they would not have added these after you departed.

I recently went through a similar situation switching companies.

It definitely feels retaliatory but I'm not going to be a conspiracy theorist about it. It is what it is. How bad are two minor dings on that record? It goes without saying that I will try to avoid more, but is this something that is going to cripple me? Do companies use discretion when looking at these? Or is it "a blemish is a blemish" ordeal?

Just trying to assess the damage to my career at this point.

It could be be considered "Don't Hire" at some companies; others not a deal breaker. All you can do is explain what happened. Rolling over, crashes with injuries, bridge strikes, reckless driving, violations of safety policies would be viewed as worse than a trailer scrape or bumping into a power pole at an intersection. Hiring practices are getting tighter with companies being more selective.

Thats fair

I cannot stress enough how minor both of these issues were. That said, I get that they are, infact, issues and regardless of what my now former company said, they are listed on my report and I just have to own it and navigate around it. Hopefully, this new company keeps me good for awhile. They are considered OTR but mostly western regional lanes which gets me home more.

It could be be considered "Don't Hire" at some companies; others not a deal breaker. All you can do is explain what happened. Rolling over, crashes with injuries, bridge strikes, reckless driving, violations of safety policies would be viewed as worse than a trailer scrape or bumping into a power pole at an intersection. Hiring practices are getting tighter with companies being more selective.

They will drop off 3 years after being put on your DAC record.

I had three non-preventables in Nov 2015, Aug 2018 and Jan 2019. When I ordered my DAC record last year in July, all three had dropped off my record and my record is now pretty much blank with only one company showing that I worked for them and they are now out of business.

Laura