Taking a Mid Trip inspection

Honestly I would tell you to pound sand. Especially if I was running recaps and still trying to pull off 600 mile days like I did for the last few days or when I’m rolling on my ten hour breaks. I ain’t got time to wait for the tire monkey at the ta to get around to telling me what I already know.

If your drivers are not doing their pre or post trip inspection get replace them. Don’t burden the professional ones with extra stupid stuff because their coworker is lazy.

 

maybe walk the yard and see what equipment is being given to your drivers

 

Make it simple.. assuming a 12 month period
1st OOS written warning
2nd OOS 3 day suspension without pay * eligible for termination *
3rd OOS 7 day suspension, no pay, loss of any bonus for 1 year * eligible for termination *
4th OOS Immediate termination. Do not pass go. Do not put the truck in gear.

 

You are hurting the driver's income. A couple of hours lost per day and night fiddling with mechanics who have trucks waiting on fix it all over the place. Sooner or later your rigs will be late.

In the old days back in the 70's and 80's we stopped and did a walk around primarily for the old wheels and tires back then. The old 5 spoke design and drums for heat and tires for damage and fires risk. Its routine and takes a minute. I think every 3 hours or less. Constantly looking. If something was to develop it got taken care of pronto but not before.

 

Honestly, if there is no company policy regarding driver equipment upkeep and/or responsibilities.. your ice skating uphill.

This is more of a maintenance/safety department issue than a roadside assistance. When it costs the company enough $, then it will be important to them.

The best YOU can do is work with the drivers to get the minor things taken care of before the breakdowns. You will need to pay them something for sitting in the shop.

 

once a week may be annoying, and to me even though i am retired, IT IS.

i say at the very least, once per month.

as it is, when under dispatch and the ELD's, they are already stressed out over time wasted.

 

We simply have a pre-check/post-check sheet that we fill out and turn in a week's worth when we are at the terminal.


I agree that if your dispatch is pushing tight schedules and/or you are asking the drivers to donate their time for waiting at a TA that is probably why you have a compliance issue.

 

There are many companies that have found ways to mitigate what you are experiencing. And no,it does not involve 3rd party inspections. That to me is extremely counter productive. What you have to do is enforce pre and post trips, and incentivize clean inspections. This is SOP right now across the industry. Go back to the drawing board my friend..you have the right premise, wrong implementation.

 

If they won't report something minor like that getting them to spend hours at a shop is challenging for sure. You shouldn't need a 3rd party to find issues that are easily found with a basic pre/post trip inspection.

Some companies offer incentives for clean inspections or offer 'safety' bonuses that can be taken away for stuff like that.

If you're having trouble with getting them to care about such basic things I have to wonder if you make it difficult for them to get repairs done on the road.

What do your drivers say when confronted?