Half of PMPs Say They've Been Involved in a Service Vehicle Accident

 

Half (50 percent) of those who responded to PCT’s recent poll said they have been involved in an accident while driving their service vehicle.

 

We posed this question on social media (LinkedIn and Facebook) and here is a sampling of what PCT’s readers shared:

 

"I was backing out of my driveway to start my day back in 2007, our house was on a busy street. As I slowly inched out from the driveway to the street, I turned my head behind me to look and I saw a vehicle, with what appeared to be no one behind the wheel doing 40 mph blowing right passed the stop sign and slamming directly into my truck bed. Once we hit, a head popped up! As we both exit the car, this person says, I’m so sorry, I was grabbing my phone from the floorboard! I told them I needed to call the police, they begged me not to because they had been drinking and don’t have insurance. I called, the police arrived and said the accident was my fault. I told the officer this persons head was buried in the floorboard looking for their phone, and that they admitted to be drinking and not having insurance. The officer didn’t care about that and said, anytime a vehicle is backing out of a driveway, and an accident occurs, the person backing out, always assumes responsibility. The person that hit me heard this and got real excited because they totaled their car.  They ended up suing the company, we went to court, explained our side, brought pictures of the street, and visual showed the judge what happened. The judge sided with us."

 

"Hit by an underage drunk driver…in the rear. It was a hit and run and they caught him."

 

"I got rear ended twice in one week."

 

"I was a termite technician at the time.  I was en route to my first job of the day and a bit behind (as we often are).  I had put my head down for literally seconds to look at my then Garmin GPS, which had a broken window mount and was now on my lap. I just wanted to have a "quick look" to see if I could get around some congestion in town.  Before I knew it, I slammed into the vehicle in front of me (he was stopped to make a left hand turn) at about 22mph, no brake applied.  Happened in seconds, totally my fault.  Thankfully no injuries, but 2 wrecked vehicles as a result.  Made me a better, more aware driver as a result.  Since then, I never, and I seriously mean never, ever put my head down or take my eyes off the road in front of me."