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poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Beware I have a habit of trying to leave out what i consider important detail so this may be a long post.

Ok I lost my driving job with Roehl in May. I tried a few places but because I have 3 preventables in 6 months I pretty much gave up on looking for a driving job after all was said and done. Most companies told me I needed to drive another 6 months to a year with no accidents, but I can't even get past that coz no one will hire me now. Ok I was actually getting somewhere with recruiter from US xpress and I was so happy. She told me all I needed to do was get my accident reports and she could shoot me to orientation.And here is where i hit the proverbial brick wall. I only had one accident that actually had a police report, while the other two I guess you would call internal because I never heard anything about it after I called to report it. Now here I am calling Roehl to get them to fax my accident reports to recruiter(she told me to do this). Woman at Roehl says she can't give them to me because theyre company property. So here I am with only access to one accident report. I call recruiter back and tell her what lady said. Recruiter tells me she cant do anything without reports so she tells me to find out the name of Roehls insurance company. To which I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Ok so instead of calling roehl back i emailed Roehl VP of safety John Spiros, he replies telling me to get them to call him monday morning. Ok so the time comes she says she will see what she will do. I get no call back that day so next day I call her back. She tells me theres nothing she can do and shes not allowed to call him and they dont use dac because it doesnt show everything. So now I was like WTF. So I pretty much have been trying to figure out a way around this, I seriously doubt there is. You know I'm pretty sure i was gonna ask a question but now i just want to ask this.

Is there a difference between reportable and non reportable accidents?
Is there such a thing as internal accident?
I'm pretty sure some of you will be able to answer this because i have seen so many knowledgable posts on here and i always get good feedback here Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post. :shock:

Uturn2001 · Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:15 am Post subject:

Yes there is a difference between reportable and non reportable accidents. This is in reference to DOT reportable accidents, which certain types of accidents must be reported to the DOT and other do not. It all depends on the severity of the accident.

Basically a DOT reportable accident is one where one or more of the following occurs.

Loss of life
A vehicle must be towed
Driver of CMV recieves a citation because of the accident.
If a monetary amount of damage has been exceeded ( I think this is one but not 100% positive)

An internal accident probably means an accident that occured on the carriers property and/or only involved the carriers equipment and was not a DOT reportable accident. It could also simply mean the accident was non DOT reportable.

poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Ah thanks so much for that. Ok so I guess this is another question. I'm aware that even if it was internal it would show up on my dac but how could i get a report for it. I am pretty sure I have to put it down as an accident I had. Someone was trying to tell me all i needed to do was just put the one that had a report. But I know somewhere down the line they are going to find out about the other 2 small infractions. Coz the way I think about it. I would assume the dac doesnt actually say if it was minor, it will just say 3 preventable, not a broken box, a messed up trailer door and then of course the police report about a scraped up telephone box or whatever it was. Thanks in advance :roll:

yoopr · Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 12866

If you reported them the Police will have a copy.

poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Ok I might have said that wrong. Do you mean if I called my company and told them what happened they give it to the police? Only one of them had a policeman come over. The other two, there wasnt a big hooha, and the only people notified were my companys' safety dept and their insurance company. I was also wondering if my company wont give me the reports what can i do about it. I'm going to call Saftey vp John Spiros Monday to see if he tells me what I can do. I'll probably hae to write to someone. I don't know. I am hoping theres a chance I'm not screwed just because i can't get ahold of my reports.

Uturn2001 · Posted: Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:23 pm Post subject:

What Yoopr means is that if the police were called in by either you or another party then they would have a copy of the accident report on file.

One · Joined: 13 Mar 2005 Posts: 950 Location: Alabama

Get a copy of your DAC and 3 yr. MVR and call her back with that info. If its not listed, then tell her it must have been so minor an incident that they didnt report it. For future reference, never list incidents that are not reported on MVR or DAC. A little scratch might have to have been reported by you to the co. but might not have been significant enough for anyone there to hassle over it and therefore considered a dead issue. Consider it such too. Some things are just trivial.

poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Oh ok thanks. Yeah the trivial accident topic came up which is why I was wondering if thats what my case would be. Thanks for the information.

heritage92rs · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Chattanooga, TN

First and foremost, if you were discharged for having 3 preventables, it's going to be hard for you to find a job at any carrier. 'Unsatisfactory safety record' is a bad label to have on a DAC report, and that's usually what happens with 3 preventables. If Roehl reported to DAC, then we could take the accident information from the DAC report. You can always call the police department close to where the accident occured and get an accident report for any accident where the police were called. I've actually had to call the safety manager at Heartland before and have him send me an accident report. Roehl should be able to help you out more than what they seem to be doing. Just about any company will release accident information to that driver, and will require a signature to release any information to another company. And the reason why your recruiter here at US Xpress wanted an accident report was to make sure that you didn't have a jacknife, lane change/side swipe, rear end, rollover, pretty much a key crash. Any time that we bring up an accident to our safety department to review, their first response is "Can I see the accident report?"

Honestly, your best bet is to find a smaller company to drive for, or possibly an owner/operater with a few trucks. They don't look at every last detail like a major carrier would.

poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Yeah im still trying to call the VP of Roehl Safety, every time i call hes out of town til the next week now i gotta wait til next monday. he must be taking alot of vacations or something. But yeah other than them being preventable im interested to see what the actual type of accident they were. I guess if i still want to drive in 3 years which i'm sure i will, i will have to do a refresher course or something. With all the crap I saw or went through driving Im amazed i only had very small accidents. I mean damn its like I work better under pressure, or something. Then all of a sudden Im calm and confident and pop, i ding trailer door. Now I see why some drivers prefer flatbed. I think thats the reason anyway.

heritage92rs · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Chattanooga, TN

Oh, if it was up to a recruiter, you could have fatality accidents and still be hired anywhere. That's why there's a safety department. If you had 3 preventables, lets say 2 of them were backing incidents, and 1 was an accident that wasn't major, you can still find work. There's no doubt about that one. And to tell you the truth, since you only have 6 months of experience, that's what is hurting you. I've hired drivers with 4 preventables, but they usually stayed with a company for 5+ years. In my personal opinion, if you can drive a rig that big and only have minor backing incidents, you're doin pretty damn good. Get some more experience under your belt, be careful, stay patient, you'll be able to go anywhere in the trucking industry. :) Also, I'm not sure about other companies, but if you're off the truck for 3 years with us, there is no refresher. You've gotta go all the way back to the beginning and start over with another truck driving school 160 hour course. Just make sure you keep 6 months of OTR experience in a 3 year timeframe, you'll always be able to drive somewhere without training again.

Myth_Buster · Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 12:42 am Post subject:

Quote: Accident means?

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this definition, an occurrence involving a commercial motor vehicle operating on a highway in interstate or intrastate commerce which results in:

(i) A fatality;

(ii) Bodily injury to a person who, as a result of the injury, immediately receives medical treatment away from the scene of the accident; or

(iii) One or more motor vehicles incurring disabling damage as a result of the accident, requiring the motor vehicles to be transported away from the scene by a tow truck or other motor vehicle.

(2) The term accident does not include:

(i) An occurrence involving only boarding and alighting from a stationary motor vehicle; or

(ii) An occurrence involving only the loading or unloading of cargo.

A motor carrier's information is public information and their insurance information is available on the Internet at Analysis and Information

You can do a search based on the carrier's name, US DOT Number, or MC number.

Click Safestat Online then scroll down to the bottom of the pae and Click Here to access the Safestat Module and do your search:

http://ai.volpe.dot.gov/SafeStat/CarrierOverview.asp?DOT=74481

The link directly to Roehl may not work but you have all of the information.

If the police showed up and took a report you can acquire a copy from most police departments for about a $5.00 processing fee. Call the responsible police department and ask for records or accident records.

If you are really desperate you can obtain a copy of Roehl's profile for about $20 from www.safersys.org. ( http://www.safersys.org/CSP_Order.asp )

The public's copy does not show driver's names and CDL numbers, however, it does show all of a carrier's accidents reported to the FMCSA by state agencies and roadside inspections.

Be safe.

poisonxindustry · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Location: shreveport, LA

Ok hello again, this is to "heritage92rs". I called VP of safety today at Roehl finally he was in. He told me that he didn't know of any company that gives out accident reports but he would be happy to talk to the person in safety if they call him. I also told him that i tried that but the recruiter (Beth Ramirez) said they were not allowed to do that. Right now Us Xpress is the only company I was looking at going to since she told me shes hired drivers like me before, but I am not going to be able to get a report except for the curb box damage that involved a police officer writing the report. Other than that I guess I will have to pay my student loan then do it all over again in 2009. Damn I feel like I'm one step away from being hired but theres a wall involving needing something that doesn't exist/can't be done. Thanks in advance.

heritage92rs · Joined: 26 Sep 2006 Posts: 35 Location: Chattanooga, TN

Your VP at Roehl doesn't actually have to give you the accident report, most compaines are just nice and will send it to you anyways. Call the county that the accident occured in, they will still have an accident report on file. Even the damage report that you were talking about might work, but the accident report will be prime. It's not that hard to get one, they usually only cost $5. We don't actually call the company that has the accident report, your recruiter is correct. I've had other drivers call in the past, get an accident report from them and send it to me, then I call that company to verify everything if I have any more questions. Don't loose hope, like I said another option is always to find an owner operator to drive for until you can get some more experience under your belt.

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