I'm not saying this driver didn't do a proper pre-trip but.....

Makes sense because its most likely something that should have been observed during a 'routine' pre-trip. in their eyes, if the wheel came off, the driver must not have done the pretrip which would have resulted in finding the issue.

 

You can bet that the family of the person killed will seek a monetary suit against the company and the driver. I've seen this before and read the court transcripts of our company trucks in more than one case. I'm sure there's blame to be had on this one since the driver could have checked the wheel for oil in the bearings and any other damage that could have been there. Anyway you look at it the driver will come out on the short side of this one.

Not only will he have to live with the fact that a life was lost but he'll be dragged into court and relive every little detail to where he'll come out being convinced it was his fault. It may have been, I don't know. But this is a perfect example of doing a proper pre-trip and CYA. The only thing that can help him now is some good counseling and a good company to stand behind him. They really need to find out exactly why the wheel broke free.

 

When I was with Swift. There was a guy that came into the maintenacnce line. They asked him if he pretriped, he said of course I did. They said well you are missing a tire off the trailer. He said oh man it must have come off. They called the terminal manager down. He asked the driver again. Are you sure you did the pre-trip. The driver was getting ticked off and said yeah I already told you. They said well how the heck did the tire come off, the guy is like it must have just come off. Then they told him. How did the lug nuts get themselves back on then. The terminal manager fired the guy right there. This guy had driven two days with the trailer like that.

 

WOW!

 

eeep!

I may not test each and every lugnut - but I for darn sure know how many tires are on my rig

 

I don't think that's a lugnt problem, rather a bearing failure. Unless the trailer was pulled 20 miles, heat or smell would not have been noticed by the driver. Nothing stranger than catching a glimpse of a wheel passing you, right before you feel the ### end drop and plow asphalt.

 

If you look in the mirrors like you should you'll see smoke from the bearings long before the wheel will break away. I always checked the 90wt during my pretrip but I did have one that the plastic cover cracked and the oil leaked out. I saw the smoke (it was even at night) and pulled over. A tip for checking the oil is to pull off the cap and use a blade of grass or a small stick to see unless you have a fairly new cover and then you can just see the oil.

 

Hmm...

Once a truck in front of us and in the right lane, on icy road mine you this was winter, had both tires on the backmost tandem on the trailer came off, they separated, outer one came off first then the back one, the outer one came off with a great deal of speed, it bounced up and over the tractor that was beside us in the left lane and continued into the median there.

The second tire wasn't as fast, it came off rolled along the road in front of us in the middle lane (we braked) at highway speeds for about half a mile before the road curved and it went into the right median and ended up laid over in the snow. Imagine if their had been a car beside him at the time?

 

It depends oh how it came off. The police will do an investigation, if it can be proved that it was a pretrip item that was missed the driver will get charged. If the police prove it was a maintenance problem not the drivers fault, they will cite the company and turn it over to the DOT.

It is not a pretrip item to carry a lugnut wrench and check them, driver just has to make sure the lugnuts are on and down to the wheel, the wheel hub as oil and is not leaking.

Mark

 

How can it be a bearing failure when the hub is still there? If a bearing got hot and siezed up it would eventually take out the spindle and the whole hub would be missing. This clearly is a lug nut failure, when the wheels came off so did the drum.