Not popping Trailer brakes when parked?

I have been on tankers for a few months and I never engage the trailer brakes when I am stopped unloading. Especially in the winter when the brakes can freeze up when sitting for the time it takes me to unload.

 

Just setting the tractor (Parking) brake seems to be the common practice. When I first started a couple of months ago, I got the same thing from my trainer. In fact shown me how to get in the practice of setting them, (Pulling on the Park, while your thumb is pushing against the Red/Trailer brake knob. Now during the winter, when you're parking on ice or snow, DO NOT SET THE TRAILER BRAKES, unless you enjoy crawling under it with a hammer and beating on them until the free up.

 

Yep, what they said. Setting the trailer brakes is asking to crawl under to break them free when they freeze.

 

Yup , we also have airride trailers that automatically deflate the bags when trailer brakes are set . You have to wait longer for bags to inflate before starting .

 

Yep common practice. The only time i set trl breaks is to load/unload or drop trl. I will never understand drivers that think they have to set the trl breaks every time they stop ie the fuel island if the tractor breaks will not hold you on flat ground something needs to be fixed.

 

Most tractors only have parking/maxi brakes on one axle and if you are loaded on a grade most times just the tractor brakes on just one axle wont keep the unit from rolling

 

I see you're an ex-driver . What kind of a raggedy carrier did you work for with brakes that worked like that ?

 

Obviously you've never had slack adjuster fail. One brake won't hold 80,000 on a grade. The boy got bruised up pretty good one day because of this. On the trucks with maxi's on one axle get the trailer brakes set on a grade if loaded.

 

I used to follow this advice as well, until the day I watched my semi take off down Vail Pass without me inside it. Middle of winter, parked at the WB truck parking to use the restroom. Only set my tractor brakes, my tractor was on snow/ice my trailer was on asphalt. Anyone wanna guess what happened next?






















Yep, my tractor tires were hot enough to melt through the snow and hit the ice below, at which time it slid down the ice of the truck parking area until it hit a snow bank, 15' from returning to the interstate. $300 to have a HD wrecker come out and lift my tractor off the snow bank and back onto the pavement. Ever since, I always set all my brakes, unless I know for sure I'm not going to move.

Oh, and the $300 was only the wrecker bill, CSP cited me for unsafe parking. Zero points, $250 fine with mandatory court appearance. According to CDOT, CSP, and the tow company, they have this happen at least once or twice every winter. Some are worse than others, in the mid-90's, they had a fatality when someone did this on Loveland and the truck slid into an oncoming car and knock it off the road.