Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Well, in today's edition of "Learning how to truck the hard way", I experienced my first (and hopefully last) instance of having the kingpin miss the latch and slide over the fifth wheel. Back of the cab impacted the front of the trailer, and I have a damaged driver's side cab extender for my troubles.

The annoying thing is that I couldn't tell you how I messed up. I've hooked a trailer at least a couple hundred times by now, and this one did not seem to be any different from all those other times. Obviously, I did something wrong, but I couldn't tell you what it was. From my perspective, everything looked like it always does.

And now I'm sitting at Tamarack doing a parked regen. This is the busiest I've ever seen this place. Must be the weather + last day of school or something. Place is crawling with civilians.

 

It's called high hooking, we've all done it at least once. As I ease back, if I don't feel my fifth wheel make contact with the front of the trailer, I immediately stop, get out, and do a visual check. Lesson learned.

 

Yeah, and it seems like every third trailer or so I get from Blue Ridge Gatorade is at risk of that because some yahoos can't help but run the gear all the way to the ground when they drop 'em. They're never gonna learn to care about the next driver so it's just habit for me to get close and check before hitting the pin. Haven't had to prop the 'wheel in a while so the pin would clear it but I'm definitely beefin' the guns cranking those trailers down.

 

Funny you should mention, because guess where this happened?

 

Wow that's some good miles!

 

Truck drivers are civilians.

 

aI carry a couple of 2X4's to help ease the workout ..esp when the trailer has 44k in it

 

Thats why I crawl under the trailer w a flashlight, and check the jaws.