Troopers nab truckers who skip inspection

Running an hour or a hundred miles or so and then checking for tires that are too hot or hubs too hot will show up things that a pre-trip won't show, you need to check the brake drums for heat as well because a brake adjusted a bit too tight will heat up the hub as well as drag enough to use more fuel. Brakes that don't release after application will also show up as hot and possibly smell hot. Brakes not being applied will be cold after use. If you have pulled the trailer often in the past, notice anything different about it and check it out.

Those troopers are targeting people who are avoiding the scales for whatever reason, that is part of their job.

 

It takes two minutes to check things out after the stuff is warm, tires, hubs, and drums if the hubs are hot. I have caught several failures before the wheels came off, and if the brakes aren't working up to par, then I want to know why. Those spread axle drop decks are nasty, hard pulling things, and they have lots of problems that most other trailers have less of because of the cargo we haul, (chicken manure is hard on everything) and the places we go (gravel roads are damaging to the equipment as well), I don't log two minutes to check while I stop for 15 to get something to eat or drink.

One night I lost an inside bearing and found it by just looking at the smoke coming from the hub when I got out. If I had continued, the wheels would have come off on the drivers side on a heavily traveled two lane road and you might have read about it as a trucking accident. I have had brakes fail to release properly, a pre-trip will not show that unless those brakes are worn out, getting out to check for hot brakes found the problem, and got the shop guys, who had been accusing me of riding the brakes, off my back.