This is what happens when you don't pretrip the truck!

On youtube I saw (cant find the link) a vid showing how to use the tractors suspension to lift your trailer to proper height so you dont have to hand crank the load.

 

The vid I saw he deflated his bags and nudged under with just his frame. Inflated the bags, wound the gear down, deflated the bags, then laid blocking wood across the rails, and reraised the frame, rinse and repeat till your at height for the fifth wheel.

I always checked that trailer when I got in the truck. Not worth the pain of a little dilegence. I feel for you Dave, I am sure you wont let it slide again.

 

If you want something done right you have to do it yourself.

 

Not all trucks have the option of lower/raising the frame rails..

At TMC that was part of their training for coupling/uncoupling

 

A few weeks ago a line driver dropped a pup in our yard. I got the hostler out to help him out and even the hostler wouldn't get under a trailer that's gear was all the way up, and it has some super slanted rails. Just saying, cranking will be in the equation even in the best case scenario (in a yard with a hostler).

 

I always check the 5th wheel connection, even though no one else ever drove my truck at my last company. (It was local work, truck was back every night). Thing is, I worked with some VERY immature people, they would do things like shut off the circuit breaker for the block heaters, put vaseline into door handles so you would get a nice surprise when you go to get in, etc, very childish. Needless to say, I wasn't trusting ANYONE!

 

Man I hate childish crap like that sometimes. I won't say I never put bearing grease on the backside of someones steering wheel, but I never compromised safety.

 

Everybody screws up, it happens! Id be lying if I said I never lost a trailer...But never on a public street.

First question that comes to mind is, did you give it a tug test? Im in the habit of doing 2-3 tug tests now, good ones too. Especially in snow and ice. First because you want to make sure no snow or ice got in your 5th wheel and interfered with the locking mechanism working properly. And second because when you do a tug test on snow or ice, your wheels will just spin, meaning you arent really pulling on the trailer as hard.

 

I prefer to get out and SEE that everything is like it should be. Sometimes the jaws just grab the top of the kingpin. I'll pass a tug test like that but could come loose later on down the road. In fact, I watched it happen to Dave last week on IRT.