Road Unworthy

Trooper One,
Great question, and lots of good responses.
I can only tell you of my personal experience as I have refused equipment even quit a job over safety. I hope you are prepared to read a long post! HAHA.

My first class A driving job was of course with a not so great local company. I was pulling bottom dumps, driving a 1960something, freightliner cabover. That alone should have sent me running the other way, but it didnt. First of all I had to argue with the company to get a seat belt installed in the truck. They would refust to fix most things unless you refused to drive or pull it, I had to do this several times. Finally they set me up with trailers that had no plates on them. When I refused to leave the yard pulling the trailers they argued with me. I had just had enough and could not take any more at that point. And being a young smart alleck I parked that truck and trailers across all the bays in the shop, got my stuff out, and locked the keys in it and left it running. I proceeded to go home and never look back! When they called me the next day to try to talk me into coming back, they told me I would not find another job due to lack of experience. I told them that before I ever got back into the unsafe trucks they put on the road I will go back to driving school busses!

On to the next job, I had a job within a week of leaving that place making more money and doing the same thing. That company was awesome for about 6 years, then my boss passed away and things changed fast. The shop started putting repairs off indefinately. One repair that caused me problems was a truck that had exhaust fumes leaking into the cab. I had been the night driver on this truck for a couple years when this happened. Since the day driver had no complaints about it they refused to fix it, so I in turn refused to drive it, that got me kicked off of that truck. I reported them to DOT for that, as well as having lube kids who had no clue what they were doing adjusting out brakes!! After watching one of them adjust me brakes, and knowing there was something terribly wrong I locked up the brakes in the yard ( going fairly slow ) to find my trailers sliding in different directions! I was pulling doubles. So, I brought the boss outside and showed him how the truck stopped, he talked to them, and had another person adjust my brakes. Not a week later I had a repeat of this experience, thats when I called DOT about it. Over time I just decided that no company was worth my life and the life of the people around me, and left. I got tired of fighting every time I needed something fixed!

My husband and I have moved on to being o/o, we are leased on with a company. We pull their trailers. So far they are pretty good about dealing with repairs and not getting upset when refusing to pull something due to a safety issue. They claim that safety is #1 there, and I hope it stays that way.

The results of my leaving companies, or refusing to use unsafe equipment has done nothing to improve the safety issues on the road. There will allways be another driver standing in line ready to use that unsafe equipment and willing to do it withoug complaint. I will never understand why any driver would be willing to do this. In my opinion no ammount of money is ever worth risking anyones life, yours or that family in the little car next to you, or the guy on a morotcycle in front of you. I can not imagine how hard it would be to deal with an accident where someone is seriously injured or worse and it can happen in the best equipment. WHy increase that risk by driving or pulling crappy unsafe equipment? I will never know.

Sorry that was so long, just my opinion and experience.

 

There is the whole problem in itself. When you refuse to drive over safety issues you get treated worse than the proverbial dog that gets kicked and being a workplace it's not just the one person giving you grief over it. What's the "norm" for some places don't care to have people come in and rock the boat.

Personally I would love to have DOT inspections take trips around to each company. Maybe I'm being naive?, but I believe there would be alot more trucks put out of service and repairs made before they hit the road, then place the responsibility back where it first should be: the owners!

This is not to say it's not the drivers responsibility to be sure the truck is safe. Just from what I've seen there are always going to be drivers that will drive any truck. And I do mean any truck regardless of what's wrong with it.

 

Well said Attitude. I do agree also, a god DOT inspection can be a good thing. I know most drivers hate it, but if you work for a company that tends to not want to fix your equipment, that inspection just might accomplish something that we sometimes cant.

 

I'm sure there's a reason it's not already happening but just don't know what it is. Of course, then again, you get into the money exchange program...................how many company's would rather slide a few hundred or so to a DOT officer than handle repair costs..................

I'm not saying all would get away with it or all the inspectors would take it, but it would sure open the door for more corruption than there already is in law enforcement..........

 

There was a former student that came into our class the other day. He had been driving a straight truck and had a picture of it. It was severely overloaded. It weighed something like 50,000lbs or a bit more, and only supposed to max at like 34,000. He told his manager that it was overweight and he didn't want to take it. He was told to take it or lose his job.

Well he did take it. Straight to the nearest scales and told the DOT there what happened. They ended up fining the company like $50k, and the driver quit anyway. The owner said he didn't know anything about making the drivers take overweight loads.

 

This thread is great, and it brought something into focus:When I was driving for Covenant, one thing I never had a problem with was getting trailers repaired (except for once, but there were circumstances). It didn't matter how tight the deadline was, if the trailer wasn't safe to move, one call to breakdown and something would get worked out.

The one exception was when I picked up a preloaded trlr in Kimper,KY (at the mountaintop bakery), it had a few lights that didn't work, and it had three flats. Because of where I was, there was no tire service that they were able to get out there, so I hauled it anyways, getting it repaired along the way.

Then, when I went to Central Trans (not Central Ref.), hauling a piece-o-$#&^ trailer (with an equally crappy truck) was almost always a given. I had a tractor with a bad pigtail (which I realized 3.5 hours into my 5.25 hour run), and instead of authorizing a repair, I got some flunky dispatcher who could care less (after 45 mins on hold). Thankfully, I was able to juryrig it with some duct tape, and make it to Indy, where I threw away the pigtail and replaced it with one from a hulk in the yard (waiting to be repaired, shop was closed).

 

They fined the company because they wouldn't listen to him and the reason he went to the scales was because DOT was there. He took it to them to report the company and have proof. Sorry if I wasn't clear about the details.

 

So stuff that would obviously fail a DOT and should have been caught on a pre-trip is crying "the sky is falling"?

Trucker, you did good on refusing your load. I'm grateful that you didn't allow "petty" little things to be on the road. Because of which, another family makes it home safe instead of being killed due to someone else's negligence.

Anyone who thinks they should drive an 80,000lb loaded gun with unsafe equipment should be drawn and quartered, their license revoked, and left in a prison to rot.

I sure as heck don't want my wife or kids on the same road next to any rig with something "minor" like faulty chambers and maypop tires.

There is a reason for pre-trip......first, to keep innocent people safe.....second, IT'S THE LAW!