All Accidents Are Avoidable

[grgrcr88]

We do not have "Accidents" every thing is now called a "Crash".

We had a driver hit from behind a while back. He was turning right from a highway, seen the vehicle coming behind him, signaled plenty far ahead, did not stop in the roadway, made a smooth turn, checked mirrors multiple times as I stated he seen the oncoming truck and stated the vehicle was slowing down. The truck behind him decided to go around him, pulled across a double yellow line to pass as he turned. Coming over a hill at the same time was a semi truck headed straight for the passing truck, he swerved back into the lane with our package car and struck it in the rear as the driver was turning. The truck that caused the crash was pulling a trailer and the trailer was then struck by the semi oncoming. No one was hurt, the truck with the trailer admitted he screwed up and our driver was terminated on the spot!! Ups stated that the tail lights on the vehicle were not completely cleaned off and that the driver should have tapped his brakes intermittently to alert the oncoming vehicle that he was turning. Apparently a turn signal does not do that!! As for the tail lights. This is an extended area with lots of dirt roads and it was wet on the dirt roads. Rained all night before. The driver cleaned off the center of the lights with his fingers before leaving the building.

In the Central Region Supplement a driver can be terminated for"Gross negligence resulting in a serious accident. A serious accident is defined as one in which there is a fatality, a bodily injury to a person who, as a result of the injury, receives immediate medical treatment away from the scene of the accident, or #4400 or more in damages."

UPS fired the driver for the cost of the accident with no evidence of gross negligence. He was reinstated with back pay and all mention of the discipline removed from his record!! Still charged as an avoidable crash!!

 

[over9five]

Makes you proud to be an employee, doesn't it?

 

[MobileBA]

UPS definition of an accident is: Any contact with a fixed or moving object regardless of damage.(I imagine excluding loading docks, maybe). Of course then we are suppose to expect the unexpected, and therefore all accidents are really avoidable.

 

[dogs.bite.me]

I just experienced my first accident recently. A kid blew a stop sign and lost the front end of his car as he pulled into oncoming traffic...that is, ME!

Well, according to management I violated the "the methods" because according to their great wisdom I failed to make eye contact with this maroon and somehow would have avoided a collision if at 35mph I gave this dope a wink of the eye as I cruised by at 35mph. No one was hurt, thank God, but the fact that management automatically blames the UPS driver is a bit disheartening has me feeling quite a bit of resentment. Any thoughts or similar experiences???

You could have avoided the accident if you stayed in bed. Grieve it. Did the other driver receive a citation?

I had something similar. I was driving down a 4 lane road in town. A car was parked in shoulder. As I passed him he busted a Uey right into me. UPS said I didn't expect the unexpected. This was last August. My only accident. I grieved it, and Union overturned the accident from avoidable to Unavoidable.

 

[soberups]

UPS definition of an accident is: Any contact with a fixed or moving object regardless of damage.(I imagine excluding loading docks, maybe). Of course then we are suppose to expect the unexpected, and therefore all accidents are really avoidable.

UPS definition of an accident is actually "anything that we might interpret as damage to any other thing that may or may not have happened while you were either on or off of the clock and either driving your package car or standing within 10 mile of it while parked, whether legally or illegally."

 

[UnconTROLLed]

UPS's definition of an accident (for the top rate driver): anyone who takes a package car position, by default, is an avoidable accident and employee automatically "at fault"

 

[Re-Raise]

You could have avoided the accident if you stayed in bed. Grieve it. Did the other driver receive a citation?

I had something similar. I was driving down a 4 lane road in town. A car was parked in shoulder. As I passed him he busted a Uey right into me. UPS said I didn't expect the unexpected. This was last August. My only accident. I grieved it, and Union overturned the accident from avoidable to Unavoidable.

The union may have argued for you to keep your job, but I didin't think they argued whether an accident is avoidable or unavoidable.

I thought that was a company decision. I was hit while parked 20 years ago. My only accident. I filed an appeal with the signatures of all the safety committee, my driver sup, a copy of the ticket and a written statement from the driver that hit my package car.

They wouldn't overturn it because it would look like they were overriding the center manager. She was fired less than a year later for dishonesty.

 

[brownboy22]

I was recently driving through a neighborhood doing the speed limit of 30, when a dog sprinted out FROM UNDER A TREE, and i hit it. im now being charge because they say that it was avoidable

 

[iruhnman630]

I was recently driving through a neighborhood doing the speed limit of 30, when a dog sprinted out FROM UNDER A TREE, and i hit it. im now being charge because they say that it was avoidable

Fight this one all the way. Apparently, the powers that be now determine avoidability by the type of animal: a wild animal is unavoidable, a domestic animal is avoidable.

I also killed a dog last year, and had the avoidable ruling overturned because the dog chased the rear wheel.

 

[kurtkampy]

We had a driver parked in a store parking lot, out of the way, and went in to make a pickup. A women tried to pull around his truck and scrapped her vehicle. Because he didn't have his four ways on, he wasn't visible enough and was charged with an accident.

 

[YouKnowWhoIam]

Let me get this straight cause Im a little slow........ if we wink at someone coming straight at us at 35 mph,they automatically manage to avoid hitting us and we avoid having an "avoidable" accident? What if we're wearing sunglasses and they dont see us wink? Ok,I wont wear sunglasses anymore. Now Ill be squinting which could be mistaken for winking and people everywhere will be swerving to avoid me..........perfect.

 

[idrivethetruck]

We had a driver parked in a store parking lot, out of the way, and went in to make a pickup. A women tried to pull around his truck and scrapped her vehicle. Because he didn't have his four ways on, he wasn't visible enough and was charged with an accident.

When I park at lunch, I leave the flashers on. I've had 2 sups and one manager tell me that when I am parked in a parking lot, then there is no need for the flashers (they will drain the battery), yet twice in the past year, 2 drivers in our building have been hit while parked and charged because they didn't have them on. I will not take the chance. If my battery dies, then I'll just have to get paid to wait for a mechanic to get there.

 

[DS]

So if you had the right of way and you had come to a complete stop, then got hit from behind......would that have gotten you an "avoidable" because you stopped when you didn't have to?

I saw the car coming in my mirrors and I knew he was going too fast to avoid hitting me.
The light turned green.I counted one,two,three...
Avoidable? yes

 

[YouKnowWhoIam]

The company does stand behind you. They pay the bills when you are involved in any accident. Maybe you would like to work for FedEx ground and pay all of these auto liability costs your self! Maybe these auto accidents should go on your personal driving record and let it impact your own insurance rates. If you fail to reasonably drive defensively you will have a consequence. And as for this "needling" hindering growth, our costs to serve is hindering our growth, costs such as Auto Liability and Workers' Comp. If costs were lower, we could offer lower rates and get more packages from a company (Fed Ex) that does not play by the same rules!

Ive got a few words for you Mr. Load (how appropriate)....Greed,ummm...Profits,ummmm....Lies,ummmm...Harassment......
GREED is the company eliminating everything from porters and clerks to loaders and routes.All in the name of profitability. With technology can some things be eliminated,absolutely. But Im yet to meet a computer that can load 1600 packages in two and a half hours or deliver 220 stops with 15 pick ups in 8 hours.Which brings me to-
Profits are exactly that...P-R-O-friend-I-T-S. After everythings paid out the left overs are called profits.And apparently after the last quarter there are no shortage of them here at UPS.Thats a great thing and a necesaary thing for future viability.But please stop shoving all the production and economy baloney down my throat like a buffet lunch cause its all lies.Which brings me to-
Lies are what we are fed on a daily basis about everything from the reasons why our load qualitys suck to why we cant get the proper uniforms we order to why drivers are consistently over dispatched.Treat us like a dumb truck drivers all you want,we're still not dumb enough to buy it.Which brings me to the final piece of this rant.....
Harrasment at UPS is without a doubt at an all time high.We're sick of it.Take your warning letters to the john with you and know this.In life you get what you give.Stop with the "go work for Fed Ex if you think UPS is so bad" nonsense.We all work here because we know the pay is good and the benefits are superior but we earn every bit of it.All the threatening in the world doesnt make me move any faster and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out harassment leads to unhappy employess,unhappy employees have bad attitudes,and bad attitudes are counter-productive in ANY workplace.
TAKE THAT TO FED EX

 

[anonymous6]

hit a low hanging telephone wire( black ) around midnight in feeder after a drunk had hit the pole earlier..

result; unavoidable

 

[HULKAMANIA]

Why are we all suprised that UPS believes that all accidents are avoidable? I happen to disagree with that-reason being is I CANT control what other people do PERIOD! We had brakes fail on a truck and it bumped into a metal pole, the employee was charged with an avoidable accident. Thank the Good Lord it was at the center and not out on route WITHOUT BRAKES!!!! Sad thing is that truck had been written up by 3 previous drivers for the brakes and NOTHING was done about it. That same night they had the mechanic work on the brake booster and yet he was still at fault?!?!?!?!?! I agree with Over95 but I have a different belief as to why they do it. Look if they can fire someone for the pay rate of what 30 something an hour and replace them with someone at half the hourly rate then GEE sounds like logistics to me!