Fighting an Inspection

If you guys think "DOT" officers are bad, you should see some of the driver's I have to deal with.

I had one guy who made a police report which stated he was "held upside down and dropped headfirst into a 6 inch high trash can." He was later ticketed for filing a false police report.

I've had numerous drivers call 911 when stopped for a routine safety inspection.

I've had dozens / hundreds of drivers over the years of when stopped are screaming obscenities out the window before I even approach to tell them why I have stopped them.

I've had drivers refuse to hand me their log book and hold it up briefly and sit it back down in their laps and claim that "now I've seen their log."

I've had many driver's claim that they weren't subject to the laws of the United States and refuse inspections.

Just 3 days ago I stopped a driver who had a blown tire and was throwing tread on the highway and when I told him he had a flat replied, "Well I have 17 F@@king good ones don't I?"

And I can't count the number of drivers who have called the Federal Marshall's office in the belief that they would swoop in and arrest me for asking the driver to submit to an inspection. I get these very confused calls from the Marshall's office asking me "what's he talking about?"

And I could write a book with page after page of more of the same.

 

Ah yes, the driver calling 911 during their inspection. Back when I started we had a pay phone in the scale. I was in the process of writing a guy an overweight citation (if I remember correctly, it was over 5,000 lbs). Had said he had the use the phone to call his company. Well, he called 911 instead and told the local sheriffs office that he was being held hostage, and they needed to send a swat team. The Sheriff showed up, and lets just say hes lucky he didn't haul him in.

I don't get where they think calling the US Marshall's office will get them out of an inspection? I guess if they were a fugitive they would like to hear from them. I had a driver call the Marshall office before. We get a call at the scale from a Marshall from Minneapolis asking what the hell was going on down there. After we explain it, he says if he calls me again that he would fly down to where we were at, and not nice stuff would happen. I was thaaaaaat close to telling the guy that the Marshall wanted him to call him back.

Its all about money, your state must need a new Governor's mansion, etc is probably they most common stuff we hear. Yeah, your revoked license for multiple dui's, or 8 out of 10 brakes don't work on your truck has nothing to do with me writing you a citation.

 

I've heard some good ones....

One company I worked at, a driver was doing his pretrip by bleeding air from his tires so they looked similar to the tires on the truck parked next to him... This was from the shop manager when they brought the guy's truck in after he was constantly having to get tired fixed. Every tire on this truck was way under inflated.


The other thing I find comical is one joker trying to explain that truckers didn't need to have licenses because they were merely "traveling", so cdl's were "unconstitutional" I'd love to be the fly on the wall hearing this guy explain that to a cop.

 

I don't doubt that being an officer is quite a difficult job.

But frankly, tough toenails. You picked that job, we didn't choose to be truckdriver's because we love being scrutinized by cops. If you find yourself in a situation with a trucker you don't particularly like, just remember you are free to leave, he's not. You have nothing to lose, he has his entire career on the line. so cry me a river.

 

that's nonsense, any time you hook to a chassis at a railyard you can take it to the repair lane and have anything on it repaired at no cost to you, guys just don't like to wait.

 

y'all ought to wise up about the CSA points. Honestly, it's kind of sociopathic for you to sit there and say you don't care how it affects drivers. I'll dumb it way down for you.

violations are issued points based on severity. they are weighted on time so after a few months points fall off and over time they go away.

For a company the points are turned into percentages. So you write a couple tickets to a JB Hunt truck, those points are spread out over 1,000's of trucks. You write me a couple tickets, it's on one truck. Any violation I receive is a huge deal and could propel me into high risk. For example, at the beginning of this year my record was nearly spotless. I have had 3 encounters with DOT, one clean, two not so clean. Now I could receive an audit or even have my authority revoked. cost me thousands to go to court to fight it, cost me thousand's if my insurance goes up, cost me 10's of thousands if I lose customers over it.

But awww, some trucker wasn't very nice to you, cry me a river.

Bottom line for me is it no longer makes sense for me to be friendly or cooperative, I have to protect my business. I will be demanding a lawyer and providing nothing except my driver's license. Got a tough job ? Yah, well tough toenail's. I got a tough job too, and you are part of the reason why.

 

this is from MB Canada where I pull a double gravel trailer , got pulled over for inspection 2yrs back I drive an older CH but for very safety/ maintained company.
well he looked and looked for about half an hr ,air up air down ,crawled about under the trailers checking I had adjusted the brakes ,then he called me out of the cab to give me his judgement.....one of the new set off drives fitted an hour earlier was soft (I showed him the bill with time on it)..I asked how low sir?answer I tapped it with a hammer and it sounds soft ,ok officer I will blow it up now(carry gladhand airline) it was 95psi and the others were 105....follow me sir and he stood next to the back axle o my rear trailer big problem !!! one wheel stud was not showing 2 full threads after the nut. so I was wrote up with the two BIG problems, our head mechanic was not impressed ,,,lol sorted the wheelstud problem very quickly changed the 3inch spacer for a 2inch one on the axle.

 

WTF? A thread outside of the nut does nothing for strength so I have no idea why they would require more than flush.

 

yup the rule is 2 full threads of the wheelstud after the wheelnut....still makes no sense to me even now.