How would you treat this accident and why

[tieguy]

Tie

What you refuse to understand it that the article did give you enough information to understand that checking the mirrors is a mute point.

Very vague.

#1 the cycle was in the wrong lane for the direction of travel. That is a good indication that he was passing the vehicles in front of him. The main reason for that maneuver would have been excessive speed or a total lack in focus driving down the road.

How many vehicles. How do you know speed was a factor? I didn't see that much detail in your post?

#2 In keeping with #1 to pass vehicles that are stopped in front of you, you usually have a good head of steam going when you pass. You can pretty much rule out that he had stopped for the traffic and then decided to pass on the left side (and not the right which would make sense.)

No assumption made. I clearly stated that there was not enough information. You do conceed that the motorcyclist was passing our driver?
The point then again is could our driver have seen the motorcyclist trying to pass him in the mirror and did our driver clear his mirrors. We can argue the merits of this case until we are blue in the face but neither one of us knows so why are you trying to have this debate? I am not the manager that pissed you off over the avoidability issue in the past. Save your anger for him or her.

 

[dannyboy]

why are you trying to have this debate?

Because having it is so much fun. Besides, in a good debate, even if neither side can win, is a good exercise for those reading in. Quite possibly making them think the next time they make a left turn across the road. In which case you will have seceded?

As for anger, there is none here. Anger at the right moment is productive, but counter productive the rest of the time.

As for managers that make bad decisions, we still have them. As you have repeatedly admitted.

d

 

[trickpony1]

Tie-
I really don't have to teach "new" drivers anything. They already know how the company will react if an accident occurs. I will, however, mention that an accident can occur so fast and through no fault of their own that there is no way they can avoid it, which appears to be the case with the cyclist.

QUESTION FOR TIE ONLY: How many feet per second are you traveling at 60 MPH?

"Responsiblity infers control which we have absolutely none of". What I meant by this is we can not control every other driver and the multitude of high speed, stupid decisions they make. Additionally we, the drivers, can not read the minds of every other driver on the road. Sorry if I confused you.

I'm sure all your feeder drivers are perfect little automatons.

 

[tieguy]

Tie-

"Responsiblity infers control which we have absolutely none of". What I meant by this is we can not control every other driver and the multitude of high speed, stupid decisions they make. Additionally we, the drivers, can not read the minds of every other driver on the road. Sorry if I confused you.

I'm sure all your feeder drivers are perfect little automatons.

you should do us all a favor then. Go back to your dispatch or onroad manager on monday and tell them that you believe you have no way of controlling your vehicle when you drive and that you are sure to kill someone for this reason. Get yourself DQ'd before you kill someone. Leave the driving to the professionals who actually believe they can prevent accidents by using good defensive driving skills.

 

[tieguy]

Because having it is so much fun. Besides, in a good debate, even if neither side can win, is a good exercise for those reading in. Quite possibly making them think the next time they make a left turn across the road. In which case you will have seceded?

As for anger, there is none here. Anger at the right moment is productive, but counter productive the rest of the time.

As for managers that make bad decisions, we still have them. As you have repeatedly admitted.

d

again there is not enough information posted in the article to have this debate.

 

[trickpony1]

Somebody doesn't know how to convert MPH into feet per second....and he's in management as well as being the guru of safety, extemporaneous speaking and debate!

My point in asking this rhetorical question was to impress upon some individuals that alot can happen in a very short period of time, a period of time in which a normal human, not a super human management person, can not react.

By the way, the answer is 88 feet per second. I'm not gonna tell you how I arrived at the figure, perhaps one of your dumb feeder drivers can explain it.

 

[tieguy]

Good you can calculate feet driven but you can't drive a feeder without killing someone. I'm really impressed.

 

[dannyboy]

Tie, common now. What he said was

Responsibility infers control which we have absolutely none of.

While I disagree with the statement as a whole, I suspect that what he meant was that we can not be in control of everything around us. All we can do is to stack the deck in our favor by using the training we are given.

Case in point. You are driving through the parking lot and someone decides to back out on you. You stop, blink your lights and honk your horn, but they still keep backing. You can not back up, because there is someone right on your back bumper. At this point you have done all you can, and you are now not in control of the situation.

d

 

[tieguy]

You can't have this discussion unless you first acknowledge that defensive driving does prevent accidents. If you always maintain a safe following distance then you will be hard pressed to ever have a hit in rear accident. Defensive driving begins with accepting responsibility for being able to control most situations. There will always be freak events such as you describe that are the exception. Many posters here try to say we label everything as avoidable. This is a popular defense to deny taking responsibility for your driving as Trick shows again and again. My district is probably about 60 / 40 in coding accidents avoidable / unavoidable. I have sat on enough region calls and seen enough reports to know we are far from coding everything avoidable.

I can honestly say I have seen accidents labeled avoidable that I disagreed with. I can also say I have seen many drivers deny their accident was avoidable because they did not want to admit they did anything stupid. I have one now where all the evidence clearly points to the fact that the driver fell asleep. Yet he continues to lie through his teeth and does so arrogantly. He will be the guy out there in the background like Trick crying the woe is me the company is trying to screw me pitch.

I stand by my original statement. If trick believes he cannot control his vehicle through defensive driving then he needs to DQ immediately before he goes out and kills someone.

 

[trickpony1]

Danny-
Tie is gonna stay with the party line come hell or high water. To succumb to common sense would border on blasphemy.

I don't recall saying anything about not being able to control my vehicle. I do recall saying something about not being able to control every other person on the highway.

Let's forget about it and move on.

 

[dannyboy]

You can't have this discussion unless you first acknowledge that defensive driving does prevent accidents.

Ill do you one better than that. It is my observation at UPS that those drivers that have never had an accident, never had a ticket of any type are those drivers that take the time to do things right. Each and every time. And I will also tell you that while experience and training plays a very large role in the over all safety picture, there is a bit of luck involved to. Or Divine guidance.

I will also tell you that in cutting corners to run the numbers that the company wants drivers to run, leaves many drivers wide open for accidents. Cutting corners is never ever the answer.

As to your 60-40, in most places including ours, it is more along the lines of 90-10 or more in favor of avoidable. Which is a real shame as it leads to the feeling of futility on the part of the drivers. And then when you have one of our drivers have a roll away(lucky to only have minimal damage to our car and a sign) and the accident is not avoidable (this driver singlehandedly is responsible for 50% of torn off mirrors, most while leaving the building, several torn off bumpers and an in the building side swipe) none of which got him charged with an accident, and then you charge someone with an avoidable when avoiding a head on with a school bus in your side of the road, and all that happened is you broke the top mirror?

All the drivers ask for is a level playing field. Someone to look at the incident and rule on it by the available information only, not by who the driver is.

And yes, just like trick posted earlier, the afore mentioned driver is one of those that runs like a bat out of hell, cuts corners on safety and service, has such a bad attitude toward customers that he has been banned from four routes, but he runs 1-2 hours under on most routes, and is off the clock in 6-7 hours. He has also put in for full time management 6 or 7 times now over the past 10 years.

Oh and did I mention, he is also on the injury repeater list each and every year, along with the auto repeater list.

So while you and I agree on many issues, first hand experience has taught me that Trick's attitude, while somewhat stereotypical at times, is one that has been given to him by his management team. I could very easily digress to the same attitude, but I still have hope of something better. And work to try and change the system.

d

 

[tieguy]

And what are you doing Trick? You refuse to conceed the point that driving defensively can help you avoid many accidents. Looks like you're following the negative employee party line?

 

[tieguy]

So while you and I agree on many issues, first hand experience has taught me that Trick's attitude, while somewhat stereotypical at times, is one that has been given to him by his management team. I could very easily digress to the same attitude, but I still have hope of something better. And work to try and change the system.

d

Danny ,

I do have to wonder. Do you think UPS management told trick who to marry, which kids to abort and which to let live and what house to live in? The reason I ask is because you and he both are trying to blame UPS for everything else that has ever happened in your lives.

 

[tieguy]

But then I guess I shouldn't fault the two of you , its so much easier to go through life if you can blame some damn faceless company for everything you ever screwed up. Have an accident deny any responsibility and blame the company because they did something that made you have it.

Tricks a feeder driver who never heard of defensive driving. Why he thinks you start the truck up and it drives itself and it the truck decides whether he is going to have an accident and kill someone that day or not.

This is actually great dialogue because the more you two try to avoid all defensive driving responsibility and try to blame the company the dumber this conversation gets. But its the way you want it so what the hell. Lets just have a bitch and whine , piss our pants and blame the company for everything dialogue so we can all feel better about ourselves.

 

[dannyboy]

Go ahead and get it off your chest. IT helps, doesn't it?

Tie, when its all said and done, Its not UPS that has kicked the dog so may times that there are trust issues, it is the management team. Not all of them, but enough to cause the problems and issues I have raised.

And by your reaction, I would guess that you too know, or you at one time were the cause, of what we are talking about.

As for things in my life, UPS has had a large impact on it. Cant say that there is fault, but then again if UPS had used all the training they give the employees, there would never be any fault with the company now would there.

Bottom line is this. There are problems with the way accidents are charged. If you want to pick apart any accident, then hell yes, you can say the driver failed in one point or more. But as a practical matter, we as drivers are not perfect, but we try. Maybe sometimes more than management.

BTW, hope you had a good fathers day!

d

 

[tieguy]

Danny,

I really think you have to look in the mirror. To have this debate about avoidability you have to be willing to have honest dialogue about what defensive driving can and cannot do to help you avoid accidents. Both you and trick refuse to even conceed the main points of defensive driving. Both of you keep generating some abstract rare occurances as your defense. Both of you are scared to death to take ownership as true defensive driving requires. Yet both of you keep trying to find a way to blame management. I believe you should both learn to hold yourselves accoutable before trying to blame managment for your shortcomings.

 

[tieguy]

P.S. I don't have enough time in my life nor the desire to screw up your life. I think you should therefore learn to blame the individual that did screw up your life. I would never ever think to refer to all teamsters as theives simply because I occasionally catch one stealing. Perhaps the word management should also be too broad a stroke for you to paint your sordid painting with?

 

[trickpony1]

Tie-
You're right...I concede.
My mother didn't love me enough when I was a very young child.....it's her fault.

(sarcasm intended)

 

[dannyboy]

Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">You can't have this discussion unless you first acknowledge that defensive driving does prevent accidents. </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Ill do you one better than that. It is my observation at UPS that those drivers that have never had an accident, never had a ticket of any type are those drivers that take the time to do things right. Each and every time. And I will also tell you that while experience and training plays a very large role in the over all safety picture, there is a bit of luck involved to. Or Divine guidance

Dearest Tie
Do you need the Braille version. Or do you know how to increase the size of the type you are reading so you can get it all?
Not only did I concede, I went a step or two further. The only one that seems to have problems dealing with the subject is you.

I believe you should both learn to hold yourselves accountable before trying to blame management for your shortcomings.

I dont have any shortcomings. Therefor I cant blame you or anyone else for them now can I? So why is it that you are so afraid of leveling the playing field that you refuse to address the issue? Is it a power trip, afraid of losing some of the authority? Or are you afraid of drivers objectively looking at each individual accident, allowing them to pick it apart and coming up with what ever they come up with? Why are you so opposed to the change?
I dont blame anyone at UPS. I only posted what I saw or what I actually went through first hand. Deal with it. Its the truth. No blame assessed, just presented the facts. And if it caused you some discomfort, maybe it is you that needs the look in the mirror.
Sounds like you had a crappy fathers day. Sorry bout that. Maybe next year.
d

 

[tieguy]

Thats your choice Trick. As long as you don't develop a motherly relationship with the company and start blaming them for all your faults.

Defensive driving will help keep you accident free, in order to apply the concept you have to hold yourself accountable. This application appears to be where you have your problem.