Many people decide to go into truck driving. It provides a certain level of flexibility and allows drivers to see parts of the country they may not have seen before. However, trucking news shows that the field can be political, as sometimes companies fire drivers for following guidelines that could make things more challenging for their companies. This happened to one man recently, and now he has a hefty settlement. 

Truck driving can be political, but it pays to follow safety guidelines

Truck driving is a field of employment with a degree of job security. However, according to Freight Waves, Truestart Transportation LLC recently fired one of its drivers. No, the company didn’t fire him for missing shifts or overall bad driving. Instead, the company let him go for refusing to go against OSHA safety standards. 

The company wanted the driver to haul an oversized load without using the necessary safety escort. The problem is that this is actually a requirement in truck driving, as carrying oversized loads without an escort goes against the guidelines. This happened in December of 2023 when the unnamed driver was at a rest stop in Tennessee. He called Alex, who is a dispatcher. Alex advised him not to follow the OSHA directive. 

According to the report, “Complainant was told he was not going to get an escort vehicle, and complainant relayed he was not moving without one. Alex told him if he was not going to make the transit without an escort, he was to take his stuff out of the truck and Alex would send his father to make the transit. Complainant would then be sent home. Complainant interpreted these statements to mean that he was being terminated.”

From here, the trucker was on his own to get from the rest stop to his Texas home. The report continues about his experience with truck driving, “In addition to first threatening complainant with firing him from employment unless he agreed to violate DOT regulations, respondents stranded complainant in a rest stop parking lot.”

Now, the trucker has a settlement. The trucker is getting $9,698 in back wages plus interest, $10k in punitive damages, and $10,000 in compensatory damages. Of course, this isn’t the only recent trucking news about a company wrongfully firing an employee. 

For more about truck driving, check out our recent article on a trucker who got a six-figure settlement.