Tire came off of the wheel

I apologize for hijacking the thread but I have a quick question about this. So, there is a difference between license CSA points, and company CSA points? I was up in Maine a few weeks ago, in the wilderness (literally). I was pulled over by DOT for having a blown headlight a few miles from the shipper. I knew that the light was blown, and had already used my spare headlight the week before. The earliest I could fix it was after getting loaded. Well, he wrote the blown headlight on the inspection, but said it wouldn't count against my CSA score, but my company says it does. Which is it?

 

It counts. You will have (I believe) 24 points assessed the first year, 16 the second and 8 the third.

Why?
Well, because we know (the guv'mint says so and they are always right) that blown headlight is going to cause you to jack knife your truck in front of a tour bus full of families heading to Orlando for vacation from Maine's winter weather. There will be bodies strewn for a mile...dads, moms, aunts, uncles, kids and that lone Chihuahua that was snuck onto the bus by somebody's gramma. It will be ALL YOUR FAULT because your headlight was blown.

That's why.

 

First. Use your tire gauge.

Second. Did you hit something in front of your tire as you started to roll or was it obviously sitting at the bottom of your tread, preventing you from seeing it on your pretrip?

 

Not to mention the emotional trauma to the innocent moose that saw the whole thing. PETA would have a cow.

Good info for the "I just drive" crowd though. Carry spare lights, know how to change em out, and if you use your spare replace it asap. Don't give the CS an easy win.

 

Those two phrases conflict...

Mikeeee

 

I do not believe a steer tire will blow out, come off the rim, and roll away as you are just taking off, in only 10 feet.
Something ain't right here.

 

rim on ground, tire layin in parking lot.. truck backs up 10ft with 4000lbs on rim rolling across pavement and no damage? i need pictures.

 

No, you didn't.

My point exactly.

It doesn't matter what it looked like; you didn't actually check it.

That's not a proper pretrip, at least not according to the DOT. And I'd imagine your company's inspection requirements pretty closely match the DOT's.

I've had a CDL for 15 years and in all that time I still haven't developed a foot that's sensitive enough to know the difference between 100 psi and 85 psi. The DOT considers a tire to be flat if it's more than 10 percent low. That's roughly 10 psi in most truck tires. I haven't run across a tire thumper that sensitive, either.

No, it wasn't.

I am one of the drivers that checks every tire, every day, with a gauge. It only takes a few seconds longer than kicking the tires does. I have a glad hand tire inflator, I make good use of it, and I've never failed a DOT inspection. And maybe I've been lucky, but I think it's worth mentioning that in 15 years I've never had a single blowout.

 

Plus it is a little bit of exercise!

Mikeeee