Yes, somebody always sneaks around you.
I can't tell if the trucker works for an actual trucking company, or for the feed mill company?
Most trucking companies in the US, (and some private carriers) subscribe to a pre-hire driver check system. It used to be called DAC, I think it's called hireright or something now. Companies voluntarily provide employment info on truckers, and pay to use the system to get info on drivers they are thinking about hiring. The company can really screw you over by putting false info or inaccurate info. It's hard to remove it, or correct it.
Think of dealing with a 'credit bureau'. It's kind of the same.
Accidents you were involved in, but weren't at fault show up also.
And then we have the civil suits.....which are noway based on reality or common sense. The SUV driver will collect on this.
The trucking companies generally pay off instead of going to court, even more so in California.
(25 plus years later I'm still annoyed that one of the cars that ran into me near bakersfield while they were doing 2x the speed limit collected 1.5 million...for an accident that was totally his fault. The party of the second car that hit me in the same accident held out for a jury trial......lost...got nothing. This was a civil action, I wasn't ticketed for anyting.)
I'm the last person to jump in on the 'you could have done something different' game when blaming truckers, but this guy screwed up....not to the point of a major traffic infraction, but the trucking industry judges accidents as 'avoidable', or 'non-avoidable', regardless of whatever the cops say.
This was avoidable, by having good habits, and not doing anything extreme.
(Like not being born)
One of the usual processes you go through with safety departments after even a minor wreck is either a conversation in person, or on the phone.
What usually is asked is 'what could you have done that would have prevented this?'
I usually answer something like 'not been born', 'stayed in bed watching tv that day', etc.
This guy doesn't have that option. He just needed to do the normal thing of checking, check again. It's the same process that keeps you from running over other stuff in a turn like that. (Fire hydrants, pedestrians, telephone poles, etc) He didn't do it. He was in a hurry.
