Am I being nit picky

i would hire the op. Safety first. hard to find safety conscious drivers that actually do pre/post trips

 

...and I would've fired him. What kind of totally helpless individual is going to spend hundreds of dollars on a service call for a $20 mud flap when I (and others) have pointed out that he could have easily pulled the flap from the rear of his tractor to use on the trailer 'til he got to the truck stop. I'd also fire somebody who wanted me to pay a shop a 30 minute minimum to install a headlight bulb that they could have done themselves in 2 minutes.

You'll only have a job as long as it is profitable for your boss to keep you employed. The more he's got to reach into his pocket unnecessarily, and the deeper he's got to reach into that pocket, the less secure you'll be in your job.

 

You would be doing him a favor by the sound of it.

 

Roadside Inspections; Why Me?
There are three basic root causes of inspections: driver behavior, observable defects and the Inspection Selection System or ISS.

Driver Behavior includes failure to wear a seatbelt, speeding and failure to observe a traffic control device. These issues are driver-controllable behavior. Not only do they attract attention, they virtually challenge a law enforcement officer to pull you aside for extra scrutiny.

Driving with observable defects also challenges an officer to separate you from the herd. They can take this opportunity to look for additional defects that indicate you are not operating equipment that is safe to be on the road or may be a contributing factor in an accident. DOT officers have been trained to look for the smallest defect and they would often not be successful if a driver did a thorough pre-trip inspection on every trip.

The ISS is the primary tool roadside inspectors use to determine which carriers’ trucks should be screened for inspection. Every motor carrier is given a score of 1 to 100. A carrier with higher scores is more likely to be invited to the rear of the scales for a thorough inspection. The more inspections a truck receives, the greater the likelihood that one or more defects will be found. Each violation will add CSA severity weight points to a driver’s score and adversely affect a carrier's CSA rating. Simply speaking, inspections create CSA points; CSA points increase a carrier's ISS score; increased ISS scores create increased inspections; repeat inspections create higher CSA scores; and so it goes.

Perhaps 75 percent of roadside inspections are initiated by a carrier’s ISS score. The great majority of professional drivers generally observe sound driver behavior, so perhaps less than 10 percent of the inspections are related to unsafe driving. Approximately 20 percent of the inspections are the result of observable defects noticed by a passing DOT officer or an inspector watching trucks pass through the lanes at a roadside inspection station.

There are two keys to passing roadside inspections and keeping a carrier's ISS score low are pre-trip inspections on every trip and remaining attentive to the mechanical condition of the truck during on-duty periods. Here are the 10 most important items for a driver to inspect (and repair if necessary) prior to driving:

• Service and parking brakes
• Steering mechanism
• Lighting devices and reflectors
• Tires
• Horn
• Windshield and windshield wiping system
• Rear vision mirrors
• Coupling devices
• Wheels and rims
• Emergency equipment

 

when driving for a company,i'd take the mudflaps off of the junk looking trailers and put them on whatever i was asked to pull. i also used to gather the mudflaps that you company hands would snatch off as you backed up onto curbs at truck stops and put them on the trailers i had to pull that were missing them.turn them upside down and drill or punch mounting holes in them or use them with a flat piece of metal to hold them in place over the now gaping holes from where you guys back over your own flaps.

find and carry a few extras and be prepared.

 

You can pick up an air-powered drill for cheap ($20-30) and use the truck's air to run it. Makes drilling holes in mud flaps a cinch. If you've got an air line that hooks onto a glad hand for airing up tires, just pull the tire chuck off and put a 1/4" female quick connect on the air line. Put the 1/4" male quick connects on the tire chuck, air-drill, air-ratchet, or whatever other air-powered tool you want to carry to make these knuckle-busting tasks less painfull.

 

Hell, I zip tied my headlight in two weeks ago. It's the best it's been in my 850000 mile freightliner.

 

I didn't know any of that,learn something everyday

 

BE PREPARED DRIVER! If the bolts don't twist off I can put on a mudflap in 10 mins. VERY EASY! Helpful suggestion, I picked up spare mud flaps at truckstops(no I don't buy them) & drop yards. What happens when a driver backs a trailier into the curb? The mudflap pulls off some drivers dont even know it. Take a walk down the party row of a truckstop, you can just about always find a torn off mudflap, same thing with dropyards, all it takes to use a torn mudflap is poke a couple of new holes to put hanger bolt thru.I usually had a least two spare strapped to my catwalk. When your at a co. terminal ask the shop for a few nut/bolts to hang a mudflap. Then you're golden. Opps I see a few other drivers beat me to the post. Well said Vintage, if I had drivers working for me I would print it out to give to my drivers and then claim I wrote it......just kidding!! But I sill think it is reasonable for a driver to drive 30 miles w/out a mudflap to buy one and save the co. a bunch of cash.

 

It happens a lot on forums. Posters are replying to the OP before they get to the part where TS taps out.