Hello all. First post here.
My best friend just finished CDL school and we were about to go run teams for USX. In the process of the recruiting phase, I was informed that something appeared on my MVR of which I was unaware. In April last year I ran over my 2 year old son's foot, because my wife had let the little guy out of the house unbeknownst to me as I was leaving for work (non-driving job, btw). It appeared that he was okay, but we wanted to be sure, so she took him to the hospital to get x-ray'd and after him being admitted to ER, the nurse informed my wife that the city of Memphis had a law that said any ER visit of a child requires a police report. Odd that this should happen to us, because we don't let these kids out of our sight normally - basically, my son would have cried loudly and awakened his big sister who was still asleep in the house if he had seen mommy go outside and secure the door behind her where he couldn't have followed her out. Why she didn't just pick him up and carry him, I'll never know.
Well, there were no tickets issued, but they did contact the DCS --- making us feel like awful parents when in fact my wife and I pretty well coddle these kids; we practice "attachment parenting." So the irony in this is just ridiculous. The lady that came out from the DCS actually apologized for intruding on us because she said that the things that come across her desk make our incident pale in comparison to what she is normally required to deal with.
I'm not mitigating or diminishing the incident. My little guy could have been killed and it would have been his parents' fault. My wife is almost paranoid about having grumpy kids, and so she is a huge stickler for the kids getting their necessary sleep. Of course, her inflexibility on this caused a near tragedy. Obviously, I scolded her for this because I had no way of knowing that he had gotten outside, and where he was situated, I couldn't see with my mirror to the outside tire of my dually.
The bottom line is, I went to orientation thinking everything was peachy and today was my first day there. This incident got me yanked out of class today by a phone call from the head of driver recruiting at USX informing me that my application got rejected from the lovely folks at their safety department. So my best friend has opted to resign from USX (he went to orientation last week) and go to a regional company and be home on the weekend instead of trying to make the big $$ teaming with USX that we were anticipating.
My last verifiable experience was 17 months and it ended in 2013 with an oilfield services company. The rest of the time I was oilfield is non-verifiable because the second company for whom I worked is no longer in business.
I went to driving school in early 2012. Other than that incident last year, my MVR is totally clean. I'm not in this for the long haul. I wanted to bang out another year and try to go local, or use the money I saved to put myself back into business in a former industry. I mean, let alone the fact that I don't have "recent" experience... if this is going to keep me from getting any decent job, I'm probably not interested in spending the money to go to a refresher course.
Based on y'all's experience out there with safety departments, does anyone have any good advice? If I can't team with my buddy, OTR is off the table and I will only consider regional/home weekly outfits. If I can't get that, "sayonarra" trucking industry. I'll go get a factory gig and pick up some OT and stay home.
So here are my questions:
1.) Is this incident that I have just described going to preclude me from employment with most trucking companies in the industry?
2.) Is USX unique for its stringency on safety for recruiting purposes?
3.) Is their stringency (as I perceive it, at least) due to the fact that they had a driver kill 5 students in Georgia last year and they know they have a lot of eyeballs gandering over their shoulder right now?
If it matters, I'm actually in a fairly flexible living situation and could operate out of St. Louis, Lincoln/Omaha, or Memphis/North Mississippi very easily.
Thanks for any advice.
My best friend just finished CDL school and we were about to go run teams for USX. In the process of the recruiting phase, I was informed that something appeared on my MVR of which I was unaware. In April last year I ran over my 2 year old son's foot, because my wife had let the little guy out of the house unbeknownst to me as I was leaving for work (non-driving job, btw). It appeared that he was okay, but we wanted to be sure, so she took him to the hospital to get x-ray'd and after him being admitted to ER, the nurse informed my wife that the city of Memphis had a law that said any ER visit of a child requires a police report. Odd that this should happen to us, because we don't let these kids out of our sight normally - basically, my son would have cried loudly and awakened his big sister who was still asleep in the house if he had seen mommy go outside and secure the door behind her where he couldn't have followed her out. Why she didn't just pick him up and carry him, I'll never know.
Well, there were no tickets issued, but they did contact the DCS --- making us feel like awful parents when in fact my wife and I pretty well coddle these kids; we practice "attachment parenting." So the irony in this is just ridiculous. The lady that came out from the DCS actually apologized for intruding on us because she said that the things that come across her desk make our incident pale in comparison to what she is normally required to deal with.
I'm not mitigating or diminishing the incident. My little guy could have been killed and it would have been his parents' fault. My wife is almost paranoid about having grumpy kids, and so she is a huge stickler for the kids getting their necessary sleep. Of course, her inflexibility on this caused a near tragedy. Obviously, I scolded her for this because I had no way of knowing that he had gotten outside, and where he was situated, I couldn't see with my mirror to the outside tire of my dually.
The bottom line is, I went to orientation thinking everything was peachy and today was my first day there. This incident got me yanked out of class today by a phone call from the head of driver recruiting at USX informing me that my application got rejected from the lovely folks at their safety department. So my best friend has opted to resign from USX (he went to orientation last week) and go to a regional company and be home on the weekend instead of trying to make the big $$ teaming with USX that we were anticipating.
My last verifiable experience was 17 months and it ended in 2013 with an oilfield services company. The rest of the time I was oilfield is non-verifiable because the second company for whom I worked is no longer in business.
I went to driving school in early 2012. Other than that incident last year, my MVR is totally clean. I'm not in this for the long haul. I wanted to bang out another year and try to go local, or use the money I saved to put myself back into business in a former industry. I mean, let alone the fact that I don't have "recent" experience... if this is going to keep me from getting any decent job, I'm probably not interested in spending the money to go to a refresher course.
Based on y'all's experience out there with safety departments, does anyone have any good advice? If I can't team with my buddy, OTR is off the table and I will only consider regional/home weekly outfits. If I can't get that, "sayonarra" trucking industry. I'll go get a factory gig and pick up some OT and stay home.
So here are my questions:
1.) Is this incident that I have just described going to preclude me from employment with most trucking companies in the industry?
2.) Is USX unique for its stringency on safety for recruiting purposes?
3.) Is their stringency (as I perceive it, at least) due to the fact that they had a driver kill 5 students in Georgia last year and they know they have a lot of eyeballs gandering over their shoulder right now?
If it matters, I'm actually in a fairly flexible living situation and could operate out of St. Louis, Lincoln/Omaha, or Memphis/North Mississippi very easily.
Thanks for any advice.
