Stupid, dumb, no excuse. But I made the mistake.

You eventually make all the dumb mistakes of you keep at it long enough. Just a couple weeks ago I drove out from under a loaded pup trailer without the landing gear down. I'm sure anybody who saw thought "wow somebody sound the genius alarm". I'd gotten distracted which is usually how those things happen. Now I make #### sure I crank the gear down before anything else.

 

This is what happens when you don't pretrip the truck!

I wasn't going to post this at first, but what the hell? Maybe someone will read this and it helps them to avoid the same mistake!

THIS WAS COMPLETELY MY FAULT!!!​

I make no excuses. ​

I failed to properly pretrip the truck. It was this past winter, extremly cold. My fellow driver made it to work a few minutes before and did me a favor and hooked up my trailer to my tractor. I arrived after he left the yard, did a VERY abbreviated inspection, attempted to do a "tug test", to ensure that the fifth wheel was locked as I couldnt see under the tractor as it was dark and my dumb arse didn't bring a flashlight to work. Well the yard was covered in snow and ice so I wasn't able to really get a good tug. I moved onto the driveway that was clearer and "tugged" again, now I was 90% satisfied that all was good.

I left the yard, traveled about 1/4 mile, stopped at the red light, smoothly accelerated while expertly executing a left turn once the light turned green, and as soon as the trailer straightened out I began to upshift. Somewhere around 5th or 6th gear, I felt and heard the absolutely worst thing a driver can hear!!!

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MY TRAILER DISCONNECTING FROM MY TRACTOR WHILE I AM DRIVING!!!​

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I don't know if it is clear in the pics, but my fifth wheel WAS STILL CLOSED and the handle for it is clearly in the LOCKED position! My slightly intelligent, somewhat experienced guess is that when my coworker backed under the trailer, it was too high for the fifth wheel to properly lock in the kingpin. If I would have had a flashlight, I probably would seen a gap between the fifth wheel and the kingpin mounting plate on the trailer!!!

Thankfully, it was still early in the morning and traffic was light. No one was injured (except my pride!!!) The equipment was not damaged, not even the air lines and pigtail surprisingly. I was able (barely, freakin' heavy arse trailer) to crank the trailer back up and reconnect it properly before any LEO could show up and add insult to injury.

Drivers, this is why we have to do a proper pretrip. I was extremly lucky, it could have been really bad.

So without further ado, here are the pics: I apologize for not taking more, I was pretty rattled that morning. ​

Attached Thumbnails

 

I was sitting at one of our terminals a couple weeks ago. I watched as a driver was trying to hook up to a trailer. I could hear a thud as she hit it. She did a tug test and was not hooked up. She did this a few more times so I finally got out to help. I just wanted to see if she could figure it out. The trailer was just high enough to hit the jaws and lock it.. She seemed a little embarrassed until I told her that I had just done the same thing a couple months before. That's how I knew as soon as I heard that thud. I felt like an idiot because it took me awhile to figure it out. I will never forget that sound.

Also, about that post above. In my second week of training I dropped a trailer at a yard in East St.Louis, literally. I forgot to put the landing gear down. I had to crank that darn thing up. It was freezing cold. It wore me out so much I caught a cold and was sick for my last two weeks of training. I always double check that now.

 

The pictures shows enough. Thank you for this extremely useful post. This is why a visual inspection is needed every time, and not many people do it. Tug and go, or just go, that's most of what I see. I'll bet you triple check every time now.

You got a lucky break, it could have happened on the highway. You should re post this as an example of what can happen and it should be stickied.

Thanks, I hope every new guy reads this post.

 

A fe weeks after going solo, I had my tandems slide on me. Set my tandems at 40ft and headed out. Stopped once or twice during my trip then stopped for fuel and a meal. Headed out after that for a few hours and found a place to take my 10 and while I was getting towards the end of the off ramp, they slid all the way back, loud crash, sudden stop... I thought I'd just hit a car or something else that I didn't see on the off ramp. Not sure if I forgot to lock em in or if someone decided to have a little fun when I was eating. Needles to say, now I check and double check my tandems and 5th wheel every time I get back to my truck.

 

Be smarter than the truck. Every time you get in or out do a quick visual inspection. Hell walk around it. It only takes one time to make you a believer. Pay attention and do it right the first time. There are going to be enough headaches in your career, don't make more for yourself.

 

I had a driver kidding me when doing a walk around the other day, kind of like. Gee you sure do a real pre-trip, I just said yes i do.

I have done things in the early years and learned to look over my truck and load two times after I set a while, never can tell when you may not catch it the first time.

 

was pulling into the TA the other night. Guy was parking for the day. I hollered at him he may want to do an extra special inspect on his trailer.

When he pushed for an answer WHY on the radio, another driver told him it was because someone SAW something that wasn't right. Still pushed for why....

It was then I politely just told him his maxi-can was hanging by the airline on one of the trailer axles I had seen waiting for him to back into the spot.


Talk about a DOh moment......

 

You walk up to the truck after it sat for the night and there's a puddle of oil on an inside axle and no sign of it being smeared on the tire from movement. OK how does a wheel seal go out while the truck is sitting or a flat tire? Get pulled over cause a light went out enroute.Trucks have gremlins.

 

The difference between vets and rookies: Vets say I made a mistake, and most rookies will say someone else made a mistake.