Thrown Under The Bus

Well, I finished cdl school in early May 2015. I was hired by Sunbelt Furniture XpressMusic a week later. I was very grateful. I loved what I was doung. Had a great trainer who became a really good friend named Monty Ward. Taught me a great deal. I was in training for 2 weeks and given a truck and sent out solo. First week I hauled a load to Macon, Ga. Picked up my back haul about 100 miles south of there and brought it back to China Grove,NC. Took another load to Pa. Same thing. Got my back haul and home. Everything was going great. The next week I left out Sunday night with another load to Macon, Ga. Delivered on time and went for my backhaul. 43000 lbs of bottled water to deliver to Salem, Va. Waited 11 hours to get loaded. Well I used that time for my 10 hours sleep so at 11 p.m. I was on the road. Drove all night. Was gonna be 3 hours early for delivery. At 6 a.m. I was rolling thru Mt. AIRY, NC. Stopped for my required 30 minute break at a truck stop. Pulled in feeling great. Had a truck pull out of a space in front of me so I stopped short. When I began to move forward, after about 5 feet I came to a dragging stop. Looked in my mirror and my trailer had dragged across the nose of a truck that looks to me, and I have puctures, that he was in the process of pulling out before I got passed. He's at least half a tractor out in front of all the other trucks parked in the lanes Being a brand new driver I felt immediately responsible. I was extremely apologetic instead of insisting that he was out that far. I'm sure he wasn't out if line that far when I pulled in. The Highway Patrolman thought the same thing but took his word that he had just gotten into his sleeper. Not much of investigation was made. I got the ticket for moving forward before making sure it was safe. I still delivered the load, and took the truck back to the yard, dropped the trailor, and parked in the truck aeea. No damage to my truck or trailer and thank God, no injuries. Next day, I was fired. Went and cleaned out my truck. Struggling to find a driving job now. The DA of the county of the accident said as soon as Sunbelt settles with the other company all charges will be dropped. I love driving and don't want to go back to what I was doing before. Still hunting and searching for another opportunity. 2 weeks of training, 1 and a half weeks of solo seems line a very short career that I worked and studied so hard to get into.

That was Sunbelt Furniture Xpress. Not Sunbelt Furniture Xpressmusic. Don't know where that came from.

Ok so you've told us this story in another thread a couple of weeks ago - Ticket in a truck stop parking lot.

So are you applying For Jobs? Have you spoken with any other companies?

And why did you give this thread the subject "Thrown under the bus". Being thrown under the bus means you're being blamed for something you haven't done. Seems to me you hit a truck. So you probably should have titled this "Rookie forgot to watch his mirrors" or "I hit another truck" or something more accurate. If you make a mistake, own up to it. We all mistakes. Don't try to place the blame elsewhere though. Even if that other truck did pull up you should have checked your mirror before you started rolling again.

Sorry Brett. I remember posting this a couple of weeks ago asking about the legality of the ticket. Don't mean to repeat myself. I fully own not looking in my mirror again before moving forward. Yep. A rookie mistake. I made it. I own it. Not blaming anyone, except, I think with the pictures presented to my safety dept., maybe some consideration could have been given to the situation, along with the speediness of the training period, and maybe instead of terminating me, maybe putting me back in for a little more training. So, no, I'm not passing blame, just venting a little. Sorry for the repetition. And failed to mention my trainer in the last pist, who by the way, was an excellent trainer.

Wish I could go back and change the name of this post. Brett is right. Rookie forgot to check his mirror would be more accurate. Sorry guys

Wish I could go back and change the name of this post. Brett is right. Rookie forgot to check his mirror would be more accurate. Sorry guys

That's ok. No biggie. I can understand your frustration at being fired for one mistake like that. Unfortunately most companies will fire anyone who gets into an incident within their first 90 days of employment.

Heck, I was fired one time, after several years of perfect safety and service at a company, for arriving at a customer too early. Swear to God. They didn't want us going in more than 15 minutes early because the place had a small parking lot and didn't want people parking on the road. We had guys that kept going in early anyhow and we were losing freight because of it. The company kept taking away loads.

So I'm told the owners and upper management had a meeting and decided the next person that goes in too early is fired and so is their dispatcher. Well my dispatcher failed to tell me this. They fired him, brought me into the terminal , and fired me. I was like, "You're kidding, right? You're going to fire me for showing up early to an appointment? You realize that will be the first time in the history of trucking, right?"

After reading through my Qualcomm messages they saw that I was not informed of the situation, so they let me keep my job. My dispatcher lost his though.

If you had been at the company longer they may have let it go. It's hard to say. It sometimes depends on the cost of damage that was done. That's a criteria some companies use.

It's a bummer that it happened but you'll get more opportunities. Keep looking for work and get back out there again.