Tips for new drivers (things to do)

Good tip there tarps aren't you. Another good one to remember is that if you have been bobtail and there has been lots of snow and possibly ice.... clean out the jaws of your fifth wheel so that the king pin will securely lock in place. I didn't do that when i first started driving, I pulled against the trailer with the johnny bar down and it held. But when I started to pull out of the spot and turn the trailer out it dropped ..... VERY EMBARASSING . So the moral is always make sure your king pin is securely locked in place during winter!

 

Lovin' the tips guys!

They do require us to hook up the air hoses to the trailer prior to fully backing under it. Is that something you guys just stopped doing along the way out of convenience or what?

 

My school brought that up when hooking to (I think) pre-1975 trailers that had the old wedge style brakes. Maybe someone else knows what Im talking about...please correct me if Im wrong. The brakes had to have air pressure to be applied, so thats why you have to hook the lines up and apply air to the trlr before backing under it...to avoid pushing the trlr back.

 

I am in cdl school right now in Illinois, and it says in the CDL book to hook up the airlines first before you back under the trailer. Yet i see the instructors just backing straight under before they hook up the airlines and these are guys with like 30 years experience. So i dont know what the deal is but it seems more safe to hook the lines up first.

 

Explanation we were given was that the post-1975 trailers had parking brakes that lock when there's no air on the red line. Since there's no air on the lines before you hook them, you can safely back under them without hooking air lines first.

You could make the argument (I suppose) that the parking brake might not be working correctly, but if it isn't, the regular brakes are probably going to be screwed too, so...

Just my two cents.

 

Right, so why would it matter if you hooked the air lines and set the trailer brakes before? It can slide if you have the parking brake set either way.