Like I said, this is my second day. I was blessed with the experience of having a service failure. At some point during today, I dropped my wallet somewhere. Everything that I had on me was in that wallet. My social security. My EFS fuel card. My bank card. Cash. And most importantly, my CDL. I told them that I would take full responsibility for that service failure because that is part of me being irresponsible to lose something that important.
The icing on the cake is that they told me I could legally drive my vehicle, fully loaded, without my CDL. In fact, they pushed it on me. I wasn’t too sure about the laws and regulations about it. I got a message from safety department explaining that as long as I had a copy of my CDL, I could drive the vehicle. With the exception that I was only going home. And that if I was to be pulled over, to tell the cop that I was going home.
The issue with that? They want me to finish my low drop off. I live in Conway South Carolina. My load drop off was in Statesville North Carolina. That’s not even the relevant direction of where I live. So I made note of that. I asked them if they wanted me to pull the load to my home or what was going on with that. Because by what they said, that would not be good for me if I were to get pulled over. Or God forbid, I had a random inspection going through the weight scale when crossing the lines into North Carolina. They would obviously see my address in Conway South Carolina and put two and two together.
At this point, I didn’t even feel comfortable talking to them about it. I’m currently in South Carolina. I called South Carolina DMV CDL Department. I asked them specifically about the situation that I am in. They told me that even if I had a copy of the CDL, that it is entirely illegal for me to operate and drive a CMV anywhere. They said it was just like driving a car without your license. The only difference is, there are more repercussions if you get pulled over in a CMV without your CDL.
At this point I contacted the driver manager agent. And spoke with him briefly. We had an argument. I told him this information, and he said that I was good to drive. I said that it was illegal for me to drive in the current circumstances. That is coming from a state government agency. But you just wouldn’t listen to me. I got about six more calls after talking to him, telling me I needed to take this load to where it was supposed to be going. That I was completely legal to drive.
So I call SC DMV CDL Department one more time. I explained to the woman I spoke with exactly what was going on. The way she explained it was that even if I had a copy of the CDL, which was a photograph I screenshotted off of Facebook, I could not legally drive the vehicle on the road. You have to have your physical CDL card with you at all times. If I were to be pulled over or go through a weight station or do any sort of DOT inspection, I would be fined up to a temporary suspension of my license. She said that I was more likely to face the temporary suspension due to the fact that I was currently hauling a load with the intentions of gaining Revenue.
At this time, I went ahead and took pictures of everything on my Garmin unit. All the messages that I got saying that you are good to drive. Go for it. You are legal to drive. Coming from safety and my driver managers. I message them on the Garmin telling them that I was not legally able to drive. I told him I took responsibility for it because I was irresponsible enough to lose my wallet in the first place. But I wasn’t moving my truck. Within the last 2 hours, I have received about 12 phone calls from TransAm, about five different people, telling me that I needed to drive. That I was legal to drive. They couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t move the truck. Threatening me about my service failure. All sorts of things.
They were lying about certain restrictions have been lifted. Because of certain DMV branches not be opened. Unfortunately for them, the DMV in Conway is still open until the 6th. Which is the one I would go to. I could literally get it by tomorrow. They told me I shouldn’t listen to whoever it was that I spoke with over at the DMV. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Just all sorts of trash. All because they want to cut Corners. Because they know that the ticket or the fine or the suspension isn’t going to fall on the company. It’s going to fall on the driver to take that risk. If I get pulled over, and say well my company told me I could, they’re going to look at me and tell me I should know better. Not go fine the company.
I told him to go ahead and write me up for service failure. So here I sit, in my truck, waiting for my T call to come through. So I can go back home and get my CDL. At this point though, I don’t even feel like I’m comfortable working with the company anymore. 2 days into it, and they’re already pressuring me to do something extremely unlawful because it’s not going to fall back on them. It’ll fall back on me. All because they’re chasing money. They will do anything in order to save a penny or earn a penny.
