So after 3.5 years at Poly Trucking, I was fired under what I consider very unfair circumstances.
I had a rush hour appointment just north of Atlanta, GA. While going through a construction zone with heavy traffic, another semi in the left lane swerved into my lane and cracked the lower concave mirror. It was an extremely minor incident, approx damage $100-$150.
I signaled to the other driver to pull over, however since it was a construction zone there was no shoulder. I took the next exit and stopped on the ramp, however this ramp too had no shoulder and I was extremely wary about staying on the ramp. I was blocking the right lane on the ramp in heavy traffic, Georgia state law explicitly forbids blocking travel lanes unless a vehicle is disabled or there is a personal injury.
The other semi pulled over in front of me, but we were both blocking the right lane. I suggested we meet up at a truck stop that was 2 exits down the road so that we could have a safe place to exchange information and call our respective companies. The other driver never showed up and I had to file a hit and run with police (I took a picture of his truck on the ramp)
When I got back to Grand Prairie, I was pulled into the office with Pat Hernadez and Martin Crowder. They admitted to me that the accident was the other drivers fault, and that the other driver committed a hit and run crime. However, they told me they were firing me for “failing to secure the scene of an accident”
They said I should have put out my triangles and blocked the right lane of a construction zone until police arrived. They simply did not care that what they were asking me do is explicitly illegal under Georgia state law. For such a minor incident, I thought the only sensible thing to do was remove the truck to a safe place to conduct insurance information sharing and calling the company. If I had sat on the side of the road blocking traffic, and someone slammed into the back of my rig, I could have been facing prison.
I feel completely betrayed by Poly. The sting is further compounded by the fact that in being terminated, I forfeit 4 weeks of paid vacation that I had banked. Because of the pandemic these last 2 years, I had not done any personal travel so the vacation time was accumulating. I lost approximately $2500 – $3000 over a $150 cracked mirror that wasn’t even my fault.
Poly – a utterly soulless corporation with completely inflexible rules.
