Forgotten equipment

I once and only once forgot a 4' piece of 4by4 on the frame rails behind the 5th wheel plate. I used it to hang the neck off a ground bearing lowboy.
I hooked back up and went 240 miles, went to unhook and couldn't find it anywhere. I found it, was the same place I left it!

 

I put a can of soda on the back of my vacuum trailer. Drove two miles on a lease road and it was still there. I was shocked, didn't spill. Told my story at work, one of the defect guys told me he went fifty miles with his can of soda on the back of his trailer on lease roads..........

 

Just the other day went from Naperville IL to Remington In with my radiator cap on my passenger step. Not sure how I left it there other than I was in a hurry to get off the side of the road.

 

Left my gloves and dead blow on the trailer fender the other day. Didn't go far but gloves got wet before I figured out where they were.

 

Last week i left the shipper got on the freeway to head to the TA for the night. I was first at the light when this homeless guy with a sign starts talking to me motioning to my side compartment. I tell him i dont have any money and he says No! Your side box is open and all your stuff is going to fall out. OMG.. only just all my straps and winch bar. I mericously found $10 (it's all i had) and said thank you!

 

A few weeks back I ended up with a nice portable tool box full of nice Mac tools that someone left on the ICC bumper of the straight truck I was assigned to. I did my pre-trip, I did a second walk around for the load and it wasn't there but the truck behind me had people working on it and someone must have put it there. I drove 30 miles with it on the back of the truck and got to the customer's drop, the dock foreman asked me to remove it so he can lock the truck to the dock. I didn't understand what he was asking me to do until he came over to the cab and made me walk back there to see what was on the truck. So I called the customer, got the owner of the company, explained what was there so the owner said "just keep it, if they are that stupid to put it there, they can deal with buying another set".

 

So about 1987 or 1988 at Ft Carson, CO my unit had just came out of a 30 day field problem. We were waiting in line at the wash rack and in a small huddle taking about the party we were going to have that night. When The First Sergeant ( He was a tough Vietnam Vet) walked up and said "who's truck is this" I proudly stated my truck 1SG ( I had just been promoted to PFC for having the best truck in the battalion) He didn't say a word and walked off I thought WTF? At the last formation my Platoon Sergeant informed me that I had a 500 word essay due to the 1SG Monday at 0530 that would be graded by the Commander and my punishment would be based on he grade? I had left my winch bar on the cat walk.
I got a B- I carried my winch bar for an entire week I bet I am the only person on the forum that has carried a winch bar on a four mile run.

I used the same tactic in my 24 years of service for small infractions.( It saves a lot of paperwork instead of giving an ART-15)

I have never forgot anything again and always walk around the truck after loading and unloading.
I am sure that old crusty 1SG would be proud!

 

Cool story Brads

 

I worked for a concrete block company years ago. We had strait trucks with a cable boom on the back. The newer ones had a wireless remote control. The remote for these cost about $3000. I was always paranoid about leaving on the deck or at a job. Quite a few times we had guys get back to the yard and go to lift the boom to load and no remote. Almost always got found back at the job. I rigged up a holder in the cab with a little whisker switch I borrowed out of the plant. A red light came on in the dash when it was removed.
The older trucks had a air powered cord out the back. It looked like a garden hose but had 10-12 little hoses inside of it. The theory was if you hit a power line you wouldn't get fried. We had one guy come rolling back to the yard dragging his 30' cord behind him. It wore all the switches off to little bitty nubs. A little embarrassing to pull up to the office with every driver in the fleet watching.

 

While driving thru east Chicago IN. a few years back, I saw a driver with the fuel nozzel still in his fuel tank, broke off at the end, I guess where it is supposed to in case some one drives off like he did. he did not answer on the c.b. I could not get closer to tell him, our roads Y'ed off. then I thought, well at least I'm not the only one...