Who Pays The Ticket?

**bossboy2** · 07.30.2012

Originally Posted by marmonman

So just how do you tell if a slack adjuster is out of adjustment on your pre trip? All I can tell by looking at it is if is all there and not broken or missing .

I dang sure can't put on the brake and run back and measure the travel before it backs off ....... but I am getting old so you young whipper snappers may be better at that than I am ......Just sayin........

+1 +1 +1 +1 +1.

**Wooly Rhino** · 08.02.2012

I was a railroad carman years ago. Railroad equipment is similar but not the same as truck equipment. So this maybe wrong but.

You can tell if a slack adjuster is out of adjustment if it is not set at a 90 degree angle to the brake rod. That is how the DOT inspector sees that it is out of adjustment. So whatever he is seeing is what you should correct.

As far as paying a fine. Bull. All fines go to the Government. They have enough money as it is. I believe we should all stop paying anything. No more taxes.

**ChristenburyM** · 08.07.2012

If you are still working for this company you need to quit before something bad happens! I was working for a small company with a similar problem until last august when a faulty exhaust repair caused a leak that knocked me unconscious and and caused me to crash into a ditch at 2:00 am in the middle of nowhere! Since that crash I have been in extreme pain and spend my days going to doctors and arguing with the insurance company over authorizing treatments and paying lost wages, luckily there was no one else on the road at the time so I was the only one injured but it looks like I may never recover enough to drive a truck again! Don't work for people like this because it will eventually destroy your life and maybe other peoples it is not worth any amount of money (I was making about $1200 a week) and if someone else gets hurt you could end up in jail and lose everything you own!

**crzyjarmans** · 08.07.2012

Originally Posted by DaltonR121

I agree a slack should have been caught in the Pretrip but I know a trailer I pull, I've written up that the slacks are bad on it for months so it could go out of adjustment as soon as I pull off the lot. I don't feel I should have to pay a ticket when it's not my truck. I baby the truck and do all I can to keep it in the best possible condition but I can't force them to spend the money to help me. I don't quite have the experience to go anywhere else is my major reason for not leaving. And I'm also a fan of having a relatively new Kenworth. And the fact that I pull flatbed hah. What I am doing to try to cover my butt is MAKE SURE I am writing it on my logs so I can show that I've been telling the company repeatedly. But I was just trying to find a law of some sort that states that the driver is not obligated to pay a faulty equipment DOT ticket so the company can't screw me.

Have to agree with the others, This is drivers responcablities, If you writen up trailers for faulty equipment, and then pulled that trailer again, even though the repairs havent been corrected, that your fault, If the company wont fix?, I would refuse to pull that trailer, or drive that truck, any REP. company, will have issue fixed, But another thing to concider?, Even if the company paid the fine, the ticket is still in your name, with this new CSA2012, they are hanging more on the drivers, your CSA score gets to high?, your out of work, and can even keep you from getting work else where(as a driver), protect your licence, its your livelyhood,

**big13latenight** · 08.08.2012

Once you take over the truck. It is your responsibility. Pay the fine and learn from the ticket.

**Pedigreed Bulldog** · 08.08.2012

If the company won't spend the money to fix a minor issue, what makes you think they'll pay the ticket for you? If they don't pay the ticket, nothing happens to them. If you were relying upon them to pay the ticket and they don't pay it, YOUR license gets suspended.

Either pay the ticket yourself or hire a lawyer to fight the ticket yourself. The absolute worst thing you can do is just hand the ticket over to the company and then forget about it. If you go to court and argue that the company should be responsible, guess what: As an employee of the company, you are a representative of the company, and as a representative of the company you are responsible for paying the ticket. You can ask the company to reimburse you for the cost of the ticket, but they are under no obligation to do so.

Again...if they were unwilling to pay for the repair, it is unlikely they will be willing to pay for the ticket.

Personally, I don't pull defective trailers. If I spot a problem with a trailer I'm supposed to hook to during my pretrip, I either have the carrier fix the problem, or I fix the problem. Either way, by the time I get on the road with it, it is not a problem any more. If it doesn't get fixed, it doesn't get pulled. Period.

**EZ Money** · 08.09.2012

I ended up in jail over a ticket a company said they paid.
It was for an expired fuel tax sticker back in the mid 90's in St Louis.

About a year later i pulled into those same scales and before i knew it i was in handcuffs and went to jail in ST.Louis!
NOT fun!

Now any ticket even if the company does pay it i get it in writing and proof and carry it in the truck.

**Rat** · 08.09.2012

You/you should be paying that ticket. Checking adjusters is not that hard. crawl under the trailer with a wrench, adjust up the brakes till they are tight then back them off just over 1/4 turn.

Auto adjusters go bad and this is why we need to check the adjusters every so often. I check mine every few days. If I notice that one is not adjusting on its own then I make a note for the shop and I check them more often till I can get it replaced. Only takes a few minutes to replace them anyway.

It does not matter if the company won't let you adjust them yourself. You still have to check them. It is your responsibility and not the companies to pretrip the truck and make sure it is safe to operate. And this includes having to crawl under the trailer once and awhile to check the brakes.

One thing that I have heard and not sure if it is true or not is that the auto adjusters do not adjust unless you do some heavier braking. Since I have never really investigated the subject. I just give pull pedal once and awhile when I am stopped.

But the only time I ever got tagged (warned) for a slack adjuster being out of adjustment was the day I got my trailer out of the shop for a full 6 wheel brake job. The pin head in the shop forgot to adjust them up after doing the brake job. I did not check them because they just did the brakes and got in the truck IN the shop and pulled it out and went for my load. I guess I was wrong on not thinking to double check his work. That will never happen again. From now on I do a complete pretrip no matter if the truck is in the shop getting a full service and check over or not. It pisses off the guys in the shop when I do that but hey, I am not getting tagged again.