Hit while parked, new rant, join in

[barnyard]

Have you ever delivered in a heavily congested, downtown urban area?

The 1st half of my route is a downtown business district, the other half is resi.

It's not like delivering in DT Mpls, but those guys have almost eliminated hit while parked crashes, too. They went from 34 crashes in a year to less than 6 (it took a 3 or 4 years to get there, but they saw dramatic improvement every year.)

Reducing hit while parked can be done.

 

[over9five]

Avoidability and fault are 2 entirely different things.

If you park and block a driveway and the customer backs out of their own driveway, they are certainly at fault and you most certainly could have avoided it BY NOT BLOCKING THEIR DRIVEWAY.

In the interest of speed, we often choose bad parking spots. Even though we know the general public does not pay attention to what is around them, we still block them into parking spots. Then we have the gall to be surprised when the hit us.

Gall? More like incredulity. It is foolish to blame the driver of a parked vehicle for someone who obviously wasn't looking where they were driving. It really doesn't matter where he was parked, the other driver shouldn't have driven their vehicle into the PC. Let's place the blame where it belongs.

Sure it could have been avoided. You could have parked next to the tree instead of the driveway, but what if a tree limb fell on the PC? "Well, you could have avoided it by not parking under the tree". There are no completely safe parking spots, the world is a dangerous place. But we CAN still place blame with the person who actually causes the accident. And that wasn't the guy who was not even in a vehicle.

 

[barnyard]

Sure it could have been avoided.

There ya go.

We do have unavoidable HWP. They occur when drivers DO pick a smart place to park and still get hit. An Anoka driver parked in a Qwickie Mart, asked the manager if he was parked in a good spot for his break, manager said, 'no problem.' 30 minutes later, the manager got into his personal vehicle and backed across the lot and into the UPS truck. The driver did everything right and it was ruled unavoidable.

About 45% of our crashes are ruled unavoidable. We hardly ever talk about them. Why?? Nothing to learn, they were unavoidable.

The theory is that we can learn something by reviewing avoidables. The problem is that too many people confuse fault and avoidability.

If a person picks a stupid place to park and gets hit. It does not matter whether they are in the truck or not. It was still a stupid place to park. Maybe if they had parked smarter, they would not have been hit.

We are supposed to be better drivers than everyone else.

 

[soberups]

About 45% of our crashes are ruled unavoidable. We hardly ever talk about them. Why?? Nothing to learn, they were unavoidable.

The theory is that we can learn something by reviewing avoidables. The problem is that too many people confuse fault and avoidability.

They do this because the company chooses to pursue disciplinary action against them for something that wasnt their fault.

The distinction between "fault" and "avoidability" becomes pretty meaningless when your livelihood becomes threatened.

The disciplinary process that is spelled out in the labor agreement is like a pistol that management wears on their hip. 99% of the time it stays in the holster and all is well. A warning letter is the equivalent of pulling that pistol out and aiming at the employees head. A suspension hearing is the equivalent of cocking the hammer....and we all know what a termination equates to.

I dont like having guns pointed at my head, even if I know they arent loaded.

Equally important is the fact that a manager who would go ahead and issue a warning letter for being hit while legally parked no longer has any credibility whatsoever among his employees, so when the time comes that he might actually have something meaningful to say about safety... no one is paying attention.

 

[Catatonic]

I dont like having guns pointed at my head, even if I know they arent loaded.

Every once in a while we find common ground.

 

[soberups]

If a person picks a stupid place to park and gets hit. It does not matter whether they are in the truck or not. It was still a stupid place to park. Maybe if they had parked smarter, they would not have been hit.

Maybe, and maybe not.

Hindsight is always 20/20, especially from behind a desk.

If UPS insists upon us parking legally at all times, why then is it standard procedure in some major metro areas for the company to just pay out thousands of dollars per year in parking tickets as part of the "cost of doing business"?

The answer is simple; the company has made a valid business decision that the expense of parking tickets (and the implied risks of illegal parking) are financially outweighed by the need to provide service in a reasonably productive manner.

Double and illegal parking is simply a fact of life in some major metro areas. To tacitly admit this fact by paying the tickets, only to turn around and threaten the drivers job when the inevitable hit-while-parked's occur, is inherently dishonest.

 

[barnyard]

They do this because the company chooses to pursue disciplinary action against them for something that wasnt their fault.

The distinction between "fault" and "avoidability" becomes pretty meaningless when your livelihood becomes threatened.

So, if someone blocks a driveway, owner backs into and hits UPS vehicle, the UPS driver has done nothing wrong???

 

[Catatonic]

So, if someone blocks a driveway, owner backs into and hits UPS vehicle, the UPS driver has done nothing wrong???

Not if he is sober.

 

[over9five]

So, if someone blocks a driveway, owner backs into and hits UPS vehicle, the UPS driver has done nothing wrong???

No. He wasn't even in the vehicle. He had nothing to do with the accident, HE WASN'T THERE!

BY, you are part of a litigious society that blames everyone but themselves. The person who hit the driver-less, parked PC is wholly responsible for the accident. They caused it, they were the only driver involved, it was their fault.

UPS likes to throw in the avoidable (not to be confused with fault!) garbage just so they can throw a little mud on the issue. Not too much ambiguity there, is there? Avoidable but not at fault, give me a break.

 

[Catatonic]

No. He wasn't even in the vehicle. He had nothing to do with the accident, HE WASN'T THERE!

I have to respectfully disagree on that one.
Don't know about Mass but in GA both have a shared responsibility and usually both parties are given a ticket and each is responsible for their own vehicle damage repair.
Another example that is similar, you park going against traffic and someone hits you, the parked vehicle is ticketed and is responsible for damage to both vehicles.

 

[mensch]

I am happy to hear they did their job and found you did everything right. They validated your hard work.

 

[BrownArmy]

The bummer thing is when the UPS driver is completely legally parked (mirrors pulled in, safety cone in place, legal parking space, not double-parked, not parked near an intersection, not blocking a driveway, not parked across from a driveway, etc. etc.) and is hit while parked.

It's happened at least a dozen times in my center in the last year...the majority of these accidents were ruled 'avoidable' by the powers that be, even though the drivers followed every safety rule and every bit of common sense.

Sometimes you can't win for losing...

 

[barnyard]

He had nothing to do with the accident, HE WASN'T THERE!

Does not matter. The end of a driveway is not a legal parking spot.

Using your logic, I should be able to abandon my package car in the middle of an intersection and as long as I am not in it when it gets hit, it is not my fault.

A lot of drivers seem to think that they can park anywhere, the closer to the door the better. I was trained that way over 13 years ago. I was also trained later on, that the spot closest to the door was not always the best and that sometimes the best spot means a walk.

It also means not blocking driveways. Which is fine, it's really not a legal parking spot.

The world does not revolve around UPS and their drivers.

 

[over9five]

Using your logic, if I am shot by a gunman it was my fault because I was standing in the wrong place.

I dislike the "blame the other guy" mentality the young seem to have. No more taking responsibility for ones own actions. Blame the UPS guy for someone else hitting his vehicle. Makes no sense.

I'm out.

 

[barnyard]

Using your logic, if I am shot by a gunman it was my fault because I was standing in the wrong place.

If you were streaking through a gun range, then, yes, you would certainly be having an avoidable moment.

By choosing good parking spots I am taking responsibility for my package car. I am also recognizing that most of the general public should not be behind the wheel and am doing everything I can to stay out of their path.

It's really not that hard to understand.

 

[DS]

There ya go.

An Anoka driver parked in a Qwickie Mart, asked the manager if he was parked in a good spot for his break, manager said, 'no problem.' 30 minutes later, the manager got into his personal vehicle and backed across the lot and into the UPS truck. The driver did everything right and it was ruled unavoidable.

If anyone else had hit the truck it would've been ruled avoidable.
There ya go.

 

[barnyard]

If anyone else had hit the truck it would've been ruled avoidable.
There ya go.

It was the store manager, not a UPS manager.

 

[DS]

It was the store manager, not a UPS manager.

whatever.thats not what you said

 

[Blizzard]

Like anything else some of it makes sense some of it get tricked up in the tanslation.

 

[soberups]

Does not matter. The end of a driveway is not a legal parking spot.

Using your logic, I should be able to abandon my package car in the middle of an intersection and as long as I am not in it when it gets hit, it is not my fault.

A lot of drivers seem to think that they can park anywhere, the closer to the door the better. I was trained that way over 13 years ago. I was also trained later on, that the spot closest to the door was not always the best and that sometimes the best spot means a walk.

It also means not blocking driveways. Which is fine, it's really not a legal parking spot.

The world does not revolve around UPS and their drivers.

Every Tuesday morning, the garbage truck rolls thru my neighborhood and picks up the cans that we leave by the curb. The truck blocks my driveway while it picks up my neighbors can. Am I therefore entitled to blame the driver of the garbage truck if I back out of my driveway and hit him?

Every day at the shopping center I deliver to, an armored car stops near the entrance to the store in order to service the ATM's inside. There is no designated loading zone, so the driver parks behind a row of parked cars. Same thing with the FedEx truck, the mail man, and the shuttle bus that hauls the senior citizens to the store from the local retirement home. Do the drivers of these delivery vehicles deserve to get fired if someone backs into them?

If you are fortunate enough to deliver in an area that has an ample supply of legal parking, good for you for taking advantage of it. Not all of us are quite so lucky.