Can you drop a loaded 42,000# trailer on asphalt?

i heard that, had to back against a few curbs or roll at 5 MPH and jerk the trlr break a few times LOL

 

Looking in your mirrors and watching your trailer sink is a pretty....ahem....sinking feeling. No pun intended.
Rumor has it that one of our drivers...I won't mention any names....dropped a trailer on what appeared to be solid gravel/dirt, right beside a row of several other trailers. After pulling out from under it, he noticed that his trailer was now considerrably lower than the other trailers. Hmmmm....appears that the others were empty, and his was about 44000......Ruh Roh Shaggy.

 

Lat month I dropped a trailer off at "our" site that they told us to. The parking lot was/is a parking lot for 4 wheelers. The trailer that I dropped off was the heaviest one there. That was on a friday. I went in to work on monday just to hear the boss tell me that the trailer I dropped off sank through the asphalt down to the crossmember on the trailer. Straight through the asphalt. Took a 14 ton forklift over there to lift it out. Now we put 2' x 2' sqaure metal plates down and park the landing gear on it. Now the plates have sunk into the ground 2-3 inches. I do not like putting trailers down on asphalt unless I have been told to by someone that knows if it can handle it.

 

A couple of years ago,a guy dropped a loaded tanker full of oil to be used for chip and seal roads at the area most of us parked at in town...It was on a bit of a slant headed downhill to the passengers side....The pavement gave way and it rolled all the way over and emptied the load onto private property and into a drain ditch...You wanna talk about a nightmare for that fella...You should see the beautiful grass and ditch work that he paid for and no telling what the hazmat cleanup outfit charged him plus the wrecker bill etc etc....I use railroad bridge timbers out here that I dug in almost flush with the Backhoe because lowboys and cow wagons have pinned legs instead of cranks and if you get one of them down,crying won't do you any good at all.Jacks and timbers.

 

So I guess the answer to the original question would be: "Sure you can drop it. Just no telling what will happen to it after you do!"

 

pretty much.

As a past owner of an asphalt co. let me just say that there is no way to know what you have. Asphalt has no strangth. it is meant to be pliable and able to move. The strength of asphalt is totally dependant on the base. And truct me, I did many a parking lot with just a few inches of gravel over topsoil. Which is fine for cars to park on but not a truck. Personally the only asphalt I would park a trl on is a street.
And we also had a trailer sink up to the nose. Not fun to deal with

 

That's exactly what I will say. It all depends on the subbase. I'm sure the spec's for a parling lot is much different than the highway. I've paved many lots and roads but that was with the Navy Seabees and our spec's were always the highest to keep us trained. So no telling what you're going to find but I'm sure we'd all like to know!!

 

I don't even like dropping empty trailers on soft ground.

I consider anything less than concrete to be soft ground.

 

On dropping trailers. My question is, does he have permission from the owner to drop a loaded trailer? That's a big problem in my area. On sinking down in asphalt, if you are not positive on how solid the ground is, DON'T!! All the carriers I've dealt with in 31yrs will let the driver tote the note on a wrecker. Can you afford it?