Landing gear

You're just trying not to have to re-grease the 5th wheel and I'm trying not to have to raise and lower improperly dropped trailers. It's not lowest common denominator issue.

Explain why the 5th wheel plate isn't exactly flat from front all the way to the back. Why does EVERY 5th wheel plate have an angled section at it's rear? Why do so many tractors have a air bag dump valve if trailer are supposed to be resting on the ground before you drop? Why do so many truck frames have ramp features built between the 5th wheel and the end of the frame?

 

Only reason I ask is because I've never pulled a trailer with crank landing gear, only drop leg.

 

I do get out and look. I also can tell just as the rear drive tires approach the trailer nose if the trailer is too high. I've almost been injured, and other drivers HAVE been injured after hooking to trailers that are only a little too high, with "just a visible gap between 5th wheel and trailer bottom. In fact the "too high" trailer was not so high as to prevent the 5th wheel locking onto the trailer. This is the situation that I'm describing and causing our injuries. Once again, we've never had injury or damage from too low trailers, while that seems to be the only situation OTR drivers can accommodate in their minds.

 

I don't know what "drop leg" gear is, unless it's like I see on some log or chip trailers where the landing gear operates by being swung toward the back and pinned in the up position.

I though we were all discussing the standard gear mechanism as you see on fleet 53 foot, air ride trailers.

 

Let me ask is it easier to put a little grease on a 5th wheel or to raise/lower a loaded trailer with none of the weight resting on the tractor?

 

Seriously, how do you get injured in that situation? A single 2x4 under one of the drive tires is probably enough to deal with that gap and get the weight off of the landing gear. If you GOAL, then it shouldn't take but a few seconds to toss the wood back there and alleviate all of your problems.

 

The injury comes during the "crank the high trailer down" not during the "back under the trailer". Often, when cranking down the landing gear that is too high, the handle will "snap back" as some of then tension/pressure resting on the high trailer is relieved. That snap back, handle jerks opposite direction than you were cranking, can cause the gear handle to hit your forearm, one broken arm at my site, a couple of severely sprained fingers/thumbs (handle forces fingers or thumbs to move opposite the direction the joint is made for), or just jerk out of your hands while you lean into the handle to apply the heavy amount of pressure needed to get SOME movement from the gear legs. This caused one driver to fall and crack 2 ribs.

If a driver has never experienced this snap back, they are not experiencing what I am discussing. Having not experienced this snap back is not the same as "there is no problem lowering a too high trailer", not that you are saying that.

 

I haven't experienced that, but I see no reason why it should do that when you are lowering it and not when you are raising it.

That being said, if it happens with any sort of regularity, there is a reason that I haven't experienced it, with all the trailers that I end up grabbing that are really high (some of our customers have us drop empty flatbeds, they then move them inside, load them, and move them to an empty spot, either there is something very weird about where their yards (all of them) or their yard guys are moving the landing gear, because without fail the trailer is too high and I've never met any of our drivers who leave the trailers this high). Any time I need to hook a trailer that is too high, I raise the tractor going under it rather than lowering the trailer. It's just too much work. I've never seen anyone injured the way you describe, but if that's the case, it's another reason to do things my way. A couple 4x4s under the tires will lift the tractor enough to lift the trailer off the ground and you don't have to lower a trailer that is loaded, you just raise the landing gear with no pressure on it like it was dropped lower.

I've never understood this need to work harder rather than smarter, and I don't understand why a company that has had drivers injured would not come up with a better way of dealing with this issue.

 

Yes but I asked which was easier, adding grease or cranking a trailer? I also asked why 5th wheels & many truck frames are angled which facilitates raising and lowering trailers during a drop & hook. And, why are air bag dump valves on tractors? All of them aid in drop & hook of trailers sitting below level 5th wheel height.

This high trailer is not an issue for OTR drivers because the nature of their job is "hit-and-run" touching trailers maybe once per day or less, or for some always pulling one and only one trailer.

This issue becomes very visible once a driver starts touching multiple trailers per day. This is why I've made the point several times that years of experience is unrelated to "getting this procedure right." The issue comes up with new drivers on our acccount who are working in their first CDL job just as often as it shows up with decades long experienced OTR drivers.

Almost every experienced driver we train on this issue is 1) perplexed why anyone bothers telling them about the matter, and then a week or two later 2) complaining bitterly about the "new guy" (rookie or vet) that is dropping high trailers. It's not an issue until you're doing it often and wasting 5-15 minutes per trailer because some clueless new-hire isn't up to speed.