What would you do?

Because that act seperates you from the motards. I use to ask the same question to myself and got the same answer..

 

After I wrote this...I am leaning more to hub failure or running a flat tire which caught fire (both can produce sparks). As for your comment about having a senior driver checking out your trailer, including you, again this would have not change the fact that this accident was preventable. During your travels, the driver is completely responsible for the safety of the unit all the time. You admit that you were warned something was wrong and still continued to operate the vehicle. It is the driver's responsiblity to be assured that the vehicle is safe to drive.

As for your comment about the trailer pulling odd...this would not be caused by a bearing seal as you mentioned (brake dragging yes). Overheated brakes can cause fires...brake fade, smoke and continual heating...the brakes will overheat the brake drum which will start the grease and/or oil in the hub on fire.

Regardless of what your opinion (or your wife)...the fact is the accident is caused from poor maintenance and pre-trip & enroute inspection.

 

I am not so sure what happened could have been caught in a pre-trip inspection, and unless someone can prove what occured, probably not your fault. I had bearing failure on a trailer before with no advance warning, but the hub was dry of oil.
Stuff happens. Live and learn. If this is the worst thing that you encounter in your career, you will be OK. Keep your chin up, go back to trucking.

 

Hub low/out of oil: a complete pre-trip would have discovered this two ways. Remove the outside cap and look inside or crawl under the trailer and look upward into the hub itself. Oil coated drum = major problem (again totally preventable). When I use to drive I found hubs extremely low or leaking and I refused to pull that trailer till the problem was resolved.

Tire flat: you claim that you drove over numerous gravel roads so this may have been the issue. Somewhere on the trip you blew out a tire to which that tire over heated and caused the fire (again preventable). Reason a driver needs to be aware of the condition of his/her vehicle at all times. If you drove over a poor roadway, a reasonable driver at the end of the roadway gotten out and inspected his/her vehicle for any condition issues and would have taken appropriate action at that point.

I highly doubt you worked in safety (transportation field) as you know what I am saying and getting at here and would have never allowed this to happen. Also Jbatmick, you claim you had a bearing failure on a trailer once. You further claim the hub was dry of oil and then shrug it off with the comment..."stuff happens." NO STUFF don't happen....you failed to do a proper pre-trip and remove the red hub plugs and look. If you would have done your pre-trip as required by law (including looking at the hub oil levels)...this type of wheel failure would have never happened. Its additudes like you both have that keep me in a job. AND YES, I have drivers just like both of you working for me now. One even told me once that they only had to do a pre-trip once and that was during the CDL testing phase. I looked at them slack jawed and told them b**l...do your pre and post inspections from now on or I will be glad to accept your voluntary resignation now and take that additude somewhere else. (Amazed at the additudes folks have when it comes to pre/post inspections and the look of wonderment when something goes wrong. I hear it all the time...I did my pre-trip inspection. Really? then your telling me that the hub leaked out all its oil, went completely dry (including the brake pads which have no evidence of oil saturation on them) and the tandem assembly came off the axle in what? 5 miles? Never once had a driver explain how that was possible yet.

 

With all due respect dogbreath,....


Yes, you CAN do a pre-trip and yes a seal CAN fail during use and it CAN run dry as it's moving and it CAN seize the bearing that quickly. So drop the "I'm the safety director" bs and realize that maybe, just maybe a driver is telling the truth. You seem to be a guy that has never been on the road and your office only experience isn't cutting it.

I have been a mechanic, drive and an office worker. Seen a lot of crazy stuff with equipment and all I can say about it is,

It's a mechanical device and things DO happen to it.

 

Ok, I am not going to argue with you, as you appear to be a SUPER TRUCKER, and have all the answers. But, consider this. The incident where my hub ran dry was caused by my running over a limb [ or something ] in the road, wheel kicked it up, smashing plastic cap. I had checked my hubs the day before, they were full, but about 30 miles after the cap leaked all the oil out, BINGO, bearing failure. No warning.Driving on back roads, gravel roads, even in fields , [poor roads, as you say ] we find different problems than OTR trucks.If i stopped and checked after every ' 'poor roadway' I drove on, i would stop about every 15 minutes some days.
Yes, stuff happens. The truth is stranger than fiction. After 30 years as an independent O/O. I have seen my share of problems that have occured after I thought all had been checkedas well as possible.
I was also trying to get the original poster to understand trucking has its ups and downs, and for him to not give up. From what he is saying, he covered his bases.

 

First point driver...I drove 20+ years and put myself thru college to get to where I am today; a successful safety director of a growing company with some professional drivers out here on the roadway. I asked questions, read case law till I could recite it in my sleep, and read anything I could get my hands on. You want to call me names to make yourself feel good...go ahead driver if it makes you feel good but the fact is...you were at fault for your incident then and still are today. You were given a preventable accident/incident then and you still don't see why so let me try to explain to others so they understand why and don't repeat the same mistake that you made. Like it or not driver, you aren't the first driver to make mistakes (hell I know I sure made plenty of them) and won't be the last...learn from them and help others not make the same ones you made. Arguing with me or playing the blame game only makes you look foolish.

To everyone else...the reason why jbatmick was most likely given a preventable accident for driving a hub bearing dry is simple. By his own admission (posting) we see he admits that he intentionally drove over a tree limb which flew up and broke the hub cap. He never once posted that he stopped to view to see if there was damage caused by the tree limb which he freely admits to knowing it was there. A reasonable person would have stopped immediately or within a "reasonable distance"...30 miles is not reasonable...would have stopped to ensure there was no damage caused by the fallen tree limb. If he had done so he would have discovered the damage and would have taken action to seek repairs at such time. Instead this driver chose to ignore the situation as if nothing happened and hope for the best.

As for this drivers statement for having to stop every 15 minutes for driving on poor roadway...well so be it. I use to drive the back roads of Minnesota and Iowa (hopper/end-dump driver here) and yes I got flat tires occassionally but I sure as hell didn't drive 30+ miles to find out about it. I was safe and got out and checked and saved numerous tires and airlines from further damage.

And as you stated to check all his bases...I rather have 20 inspections in a day then once at all. If that hub assembly would have come of and went thru a car windshield...do you think the plantiff's attorney would have loved to hear your excuse of "well I checked it once and it was fine". Sure he would have...as they net millions of dollars in a judgment against the motor carrier, insurance carrier and the driver (you).

When in doubt, stop and check is what I am saying...or don't expect any sympathy when the ###### hits the fan and your either in jail or on the wrong side of a court room hearing.

 

MNdriver...please reread all my posts before adding your three cents worth of advise. If you would have read all my posts here you would have seen I was a driver since I was 20 years old (1992-2012) +20 years. I still drive occassionally as need arises. Been a safety director now for 3 years and counting. I will admit I am not a mechanic so that is why I leave the mechanical repairs to the professionals but I have been in this industry long enough to know what is and isn't a failure. So before you run your lips off and point out facts based on nothing here...please slow down and read the entire thread before posting is all I am asking for.

Lastly..for a hub to run dry quickly...there has to be a massive leak fast leak as Jbatmick describes here (break in the hub cap will do the trick). For slow leaks...they take time and are evident that no one ever bothered to check the hub oil in their pre/post trip inspections.

I watched drivers turn their lights on...get out and kick tires and walk around their vehicle before returning to the truck and drive away. Never once bending down to look underneath the trailer or even popping the hub plugs to see if there is oil in the hubs.

This last week alone, I spot inspected two of our own trailers and found three hubs extremely low on oil. When I ask the driver what they found in their pre-trip...I hear "no issues". So when I point out and ask them to look at that violations I found...amazing, they see what I find and I hear.."oh I didn't get to that or that just happened". Really driver? I was standing over there watching you and I trust me I can see.

Or better yet...I took a load from a driver two months ago myself to run to the Twin Cities to drop/hook and during my pre-trip inspection I found that the driver left the slider handle for the tandems (literally) pulled out. Not one pin was engaged into trailer. When I questioned the driver (still unloading his stuff from the cab into his pickup) when he slide the tandems, he explained that he did it in South Beloit, WI. I asked him to view the tandems now. He did and his answer was..how did that happen? He further claimed that they must have "popped out" during transit. Honestly do I look like an idiot here?

Thankfully this trailer tandems didn't move when he stopped since they are old and extremely hard to shift but could you image if they did move? Imagine the damage, destruction and injury to everyone near by for the drivers negligent act of not inspecting his actions after readjusting the tandems? Is it my fault that he didn't do his job? Could have the tandems unlocked themselves in-route and the handle find itself in the locked out position? or was this negligent act by the driver and thankfully didn't cause an accident?

 

Save it.....

You lost the credibility with your first statement. If something happens DURING operations, no pre-trip in the world would have found it. EVER.

you should probably go back on the road as you seem to have forgotten that part in reality.