I wouldnt worry about the sign incident. If you have 1-2 years experience, doubles and hazmat endorsement, a clean liscence and a clean criminal background you can get hired by us or anyone else. I had a year of regional OTR, home weekends, and got hired at Conway Freight then 6 mos later UPS Freight.
You see experience is not the big factor. You have to realize that alot of drivers have criminal or driving backgrounds (including DUI) that make them unhireable. The other thing is alot of drivers are unwilling to start at the bottom. They dont want to sit by the phone or work the dock, all things that newbies have to go thru. An established OTR driver making 50-60k would be looking at a pay cut and a harder job so they're not willing to put their time in. Everyone wants to be a road driver with a set run making 90k but they dont want to wait for it. Our road drivers make on average 70-100k and its not that hard a job. So you have to drive a fork lift sometimes. big deal. Getting hired is not hard, the job is not hard, the hard part is feeding your family when work is slow and you have no seniority.