JBenson2,

One of these incidents involved an O/O flatbedder pulling in next to me in one of those pull through parking spots. I'm remembering now I wasn't in the sleeper w/ this one but sitting in the seat doing the log. It was just after dusk & this guy had a long oversize load & misjudged his wide turn & caught my red side marker on the left rear of my tank. I glanced up & noticed right away he had stopped and his RT fender was way too close so I got out to check things out. I had one of those conical shaped marker lenses that stick out about 3 inches. He busted that into 3 pieces but amazingly didn't hit anything else including the bulb. He was an older guy, apologized profusely & offered me a $10 dollar bill to compensate. Since that was all he did I accepted. I was in a rest area in Valley Forge, PA that had a gas station but no replacement lenses, so I gathered up the 3 broken pieces & glued them together, let it dry overnight, then popped it back on til I could get a replacement.

However, (and this is just me) I called my terminal mgr anyway & explained what happened & he said no problem; just buy a lense and keep the rest of the ten spot and apply it to what little the company already owed me for incidental expenses out of pocket.

Two of my hits happened when I was away from my truck, so I didn't talk to a driver. Again, very minor. I know they weren't there before. Whenever I'm away from the truck I always do a walk around, including checking to see if my 5th wheel pin has been pulled. After awhile I got to know every ding, dent and scratch which were easy to spot because I had a nice truck (even though it WAS a Freightliner FLD 8) )

I could be here all night telling 3 other stories but to answer your question, no, these hits were very minor so there were no police involved. However, it is my practice to report everything, my fault or not and my bosses know this. They are blown away when I admit something I probably could have gotten away with, but the pay off has been a good working relationship and they have no doubt that I always tell them the truth. If I say I'm not responsible they believe it, and the matter is dropped. This is what I did with all 4 of these incidents, my explanations were accepted by mgmt, and they didn't want to bother with the paperwork. It helps that I've only been responsible for a handful of minor bumper dings or scratches, or a couple of torn off mud flaps in my career, but nothing costly or involving another vehicle. Sorry for the long post. :wink: