Yet another example of abject corporate stupidity...

[hubrat]

This one ain't that hard to figure out. I'm surprised one of you didn't come up with the answer. Fido has an owner. When you run him over the owner sues us. Bambi is a wild animal with no owner. No owner no claim.

In an area with a leash law, the owner may sue but the law is on the side of the company. When said company disagrees with the law and claims that the driver coulda/shoulda avoided it they have then admitted liability and opened themselves to a claim.

 

[hubrat]

Couple of good Richard Schaden quotes, if I may:

People will do things in a boardroom that they would never do as an individual. Group decisions, no personal liability.

To a certain corporate cast of mind, people who die in air crashes are really the enemy.

 

[Re-Raise]

This one ain't that hard to figure out. I'm surprised one of you didn't come up with the answer. Fido has an owner. When you run him over the owner sues us. Bambi is a wild animal with no owner. No owner no claim.

Good luck suing someone for running over a dog in the road.

 

[raceanoncr]

In this age of "tabloid" news, I can't help but think that maybe a "dime" could be dropped on your local news agencies if one is charged with such incidents. Even local TV, papers, circulars, anything, is looking to boost ratings and usually fall over each other for such stories as this.

Think UPS would relish such PR? Try it.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

How long until mean spirited DM places kittens underneath "problem employees" trucks?

 

[soberups]

This one ain't that hard to figure out. I'm surprised one of you didn't come up with the answer. Fido has an owner. When you run him over the owner sues us. Bambi is a wild animal with no owner. No owner no claim.

Your logic is flawed for 2 reasons. #1 if the owner is going to sue UPS, the last thing the company would want to do is to admit any sort of liability by charging the driver with an "avoidable" accident. #2 the animal's "status" as a domestic vs. wild one has no bearing upon the objective conditions that exist at the moment in time that the driver must decide what evasive action, if any, that he/she is going to take.

As near as I can figure, the only purpose of this new rule is to enhance the job security of the management people in the "Safety" department. More avoidable accidents= more reports=more meetings and conference calls. Shuffle enough paper around and by God it looks like you might actually be contributing something.

 

[Old International]

Gee when I was a package car driver, if it was an animal in the road, it was fair game. I notched the steering wheel 16 times before I went to feeders. Since then, I have hit at least one deer, two dogs doing the wild thing in the middle of the road, and only God knows how many possums and armodillias.

 

[johnoutdoors]

A couple of years ago, a guy in my center hit a customer's dog and was charged with an avoidable accident. The dog ran up from the right rear of the car and was hit by the front tire. The center manager told him that since the dog was hit with the front wheel he should have seen it coming. When asked how he could have avoided the accident, the driver said he should have sped up and hit the dog with the rear wheels, just as dead, just not avoidable.

 

[brownIEman]

In an area with a leash law, the owner may sue but the law is on the side of the company. When said company disagrees with the law and claims that the driver coulda/shoulda avoided it they have then admitted liability and opened themselves to a claim.

I have seen this misunderstanding many times by many posters on this board. It is understandable, it is counter intuitive, but the truth is, avoidable does not in any way mean at fault or liable. Charging a driver in internal UPS reports and paperwork is not an admission of guilt nor an admission of liability ( this is stated clearly in many of the reports that are filed for an accident).
This principal has and continues to stand up in court. We have had people back into package cars and gone after their insurance successfully for reimbursement even after charging the driver with an avoidable for picking a bad place to park.
The avoidable/unavoidable criteria UPS uses goes beyond fault or liability and holds UPS drivers to a much higher level of accident avoidance behavior than what the law does.

 

[brownIEman]

Your logic is flawed for 2 reasons. #1 if the owner is going to sue UPS, the last thing the company would want to do is to admit any sort of liability by charging the driver with an "avoidable" accident. #2 the animal's "status" as a domestic vs. wild one has no bearing upon the objective conditions that exist at the moment in time that the driver must decide what evasive action, if any, that he/she is going to take.

As near as I can figure, the only purpose of this new rule is to enhance the job security of the management people in the "Safety" department. More avoidable accidents= more reports=more meetings and conference calls. Shuffle enough paper around and by God it looks like you might actually be contributing something.

Your point #1 is flawed, as I said in my previous post, avoidable is not equal to an admission of quilt or liability in any way.
Your point #2 is logically speaking, flawless as far as I can tell. Ownership or not has no bearing on the actual events in an accident.

Your theory on why they may be doing it is flawed for this reason: The amount of paperwork, reports filed, conference calls, safety management employee time involved, etc. is identical for an avoidable or unavoidable accident. In fact, most of the reports, paperwork, conference calls, etc all take place after an accident before the final determination of avoidable or unavoidable is made.

 

[stewardtwoniner]

Gee when I was a package car driver, if it was an animal in the road, it was fair game. I notched the steering wheel 16 times before I went to feeders.

Your answer may be one reason for this stupid policy. there are folks that put no value in an animals life and others who feel like they lost a member of the family when their dog gets run over. Could you have had less notchs on your wheel if you had slowed down when you saw an animal in the road? I lost a big lab when I was a kid who jumped the fence and got away. A car flying down the road clocked him as I was running up the road chasing him. That image of my dog getting clocked and flipped around is burned in my mind. That dog of mine did not need to die that day. That driver simply had to drive the speed limit see my dog and slow down.

 

[dilligaf]

Your answer may be one reason for this stupid policy. there are folks that put no value in an animals life and others who feel like they lost a member of the family when their dog gets run over. Could you have had less notchs on your wheel if you had slowed down when you saw an animal in the road? I lost a big lab when I was a kid who jumped the fence and got away. A car flying down the road clocked him as I was running up the road chasing him. That image of my dog getting clocked and flipped around is burned in my mind. That dog of mine did not need to die that day. That driver simply had to drive the speed limit see my dog and slow down.

I know OI and I believe his comments to be more flippant than serious. I do not believe that he intended to be hateful. That being said, owners have a responsibility to protect their pets and not allow them to run loose, regardless of how they get out. I'm sorry you lost your pet the way you did but that does not mean that it is solely the drivers fault. Of course there are those that have no heart and intentionally go out of their way to harm animals. They are few and far between. There are MANY people that do care and it affects them very much when they hit an animal, wild or domestic.

I am one of those, and many UPS drivers are. I have hit wild and domestic animals both. I do not like doing it but I, as a driver of whatever vehicle I may be in, have a responsibility to do my utmost best to protect myself and any other person on or near the road from injury due to my actions. If given the option I would avoid hitting an animal, If that option is not available then I will take out the animal before causing harm to another motorist or pedestrian or going off the road. DONE!

 

[hubrat]

I have seen this misunderstanding many times by many posters on this board. It is understandable, it is counter intuitive, but the truth is, avoidable does not in any way mean at fault or liable. Charging a driver in internal UPS reports and paperwork is not an admission of guilt nor an admission of liability ( this is stated clearly in many of the reports that are filed for an accident).
This principal has and continues to stand up in court. We have had people back into package cars and gone after their insurance successfully for reimbursement even after charging the driver with an avoidable for picking a bad place to park.
The avoidable/unavoidable criteria UPS uses goes beyond fault or liability and holds UPS drivers to a much higher level of accident avoidance behavior than what the law does.

I truly appreciate the correction. I am glad the company holds me to a higher standard. Too bad they have little respect for people in ops, hourly or management. If they are going to hold their standards above the law, they need to treat their employees better than criminals.

 

[UnconTROLLed]

Yeah, UPS safety and avoidability:

It's an embarrasing scam of a way to frame a driver as unsafe and having done wrong. IT rarely if ever has anything to do with learning anything, generally a split second decision that went wrong or something unforseen changed and an accident occured.

Then CH (center manager and safety co-chair)come swooping in and says "well he could have done this, should have done this, this would have happened instead" in an over demanding if not improbable, impossible sequence of events in that space and time. The unforseen is somehow seen because the driver had time to look in four different directions at once with all four sets of eyeballs in his /her head, for example. Somehow that looks good on paper and the center has made it's paper trail of the accident and put as much accountability on the driver, whether at fault or not even in the truck, completely innocent of anything going on.

 

[tourists24]

I truly appreciate the correction. I am glad the company holds me to a higher standard. Too bad they have little respect for people in ops, hourly or management. If they are going to hold their standards above the law, they need to treat their employees better than criminals.

AND, as Sober pointed out, all the reports that go round and round like a roulette wheel is good job security for many jobs that need to be justified or gone

 

[thessalonian13]

To call this company stupid would be an insult to stupid. I really don't give a crap about their new rules. I do my job by their methods and let everything they tell me go in 1 ear and out the other ear. It's much more simple that way. I am counting down the years till I am outta here. CAN'T WAIT!!! I had 4 out of 5 numbers on the lottery last night!!! Almost did it... LOL

 

[soberups]

The avoidable/unavoidable criteria UPS uses goes beyond fault or liability and holds UPS drivers to a much higher level of accident avoidance behavior than what the law does.

I dont have a problem being held to a high standard.

I do have a problem...being held to an irrational and idotic standard.

As drivers, we make thousands of decisions every day in real time and in the real world. When an accident happens, those decisions will be second-guessed by a management person who is employing 20/20 hindsight from behind a desk. So the management person will always be right, and the driver will always be wrong.

Upon what logical, rational basis does the species of the animal play a role in determining the avoidability of the accident that kills it?

 

[CharleyHustle]

Your point #1 is flawed, as I said in my previous post, avoidable is not equal to an admission of quilt or liability in any way.
Your point #2 is logically speaking, flawless as far as I can tell. Ownership or not has no bearing on the actual events in an accident.

Your theory on why they may be doing it is flawed for this reason: The amount of paperwork, reports filed, conference calls, safety management employee time involved, etc. is identical for an avoidable or unavoidable accident. In fact, most of the reports, paperwork, conference calls, etc all take place after an accident before the final determination of avoidable or unavoidable is made.

Can you give a few examples of an UNavoidable accident?

 

[soberups]

There are people who keep these as pets. Is there some special acronym or commentary I should memorize in order to keep from running them over? And if I do run one over, should I scrape it off the road and bring it in to my managers office so that he can take pictures of it for my warning letter?

 

[brownIEman]

Can you give a few examples of an UNavoidable accident?

Sure -
Most hit while parked where a safe parking spot was chosen
Most hit in rear while stopped in traffic
Accidents where the UPS driver is not at fault and the investigation answers yes to each and every question about weather the driver followed all the 5 habits, 10 points and many other such questions.
According to sober's initial post, hitting a wild animal on a public road

I am sure there are others.