Curious

I was delivering to a Store DC in the Portland Area. I had just got my door assignment, pulled up just past my door and got out to open the trailer doors. Like usual I tend to fling my doors open the walk around to meet and secure them to the side of the trailer. This time when I flung the right side door open in came back at me in a hurry, knocking me out cold.

I later learned that a Foster's Farms truck had hit the door at a speed best described as insane for a yard.

 

I saw a tractor drop a trailer during hookup...He wound the gear up before checking that the lockjaw was closed. 80,000 lb load too, GP Paper

 

Worst thing I've seen was at Central Bag Company in KC, MO as part of a three stop drop for Werner. Most definitely setup for pups or straight trucks. The easy way in was blocked by a trailer so they told us to go down a block, make a left, then another left, a right and then back down the street to set up. So the trainer did all that and I stood outside to spot him and stay out of the way. As he was angling the truck back we had to get the people across the street to move their pick up. There were two huge yellow concrete poles on either side of the dock and the left door ended up catching one of them. One of their guys came out and stood on the dock wondering what was going on not knowing that it was a PITA to back in. When it was all said and done he had to ell shape the truck to get the trailer in the hole because there wasn't enough room to get in the hole without hitting the building across the street.
Things were kinda tense and a day later we got into it at a Barnes and Noble DC in Jamesburg, NJ when I let the tandems go over a curb instead of swinging wider and hitting an O/O truck that was coming out. Ugh. Fun days.

 

whatever you do...never feel rushed...get out and look as many times as you need to...backing in is not a race nor competition...better to take one hour than 5 minutes and damage another truck or property...

 

Dial Soap in Toledo, Ohio. This was around 15 years ago so I hope they moved to a better building.

You had plenty of room to pull up and do a straight line back to the inside dock but it was so narrow that they even had a sign saying to be perfectly straight before backing. It was so tight that I needed two drivers to hold my trailer doors against the trailer to get in.
When the driver next to me with a 48' trailer was loaded before me, I had to pull my passenger side mirrors in so he could get out.

Thankfully I was only there twice.

 

About 18 years ago I was delivering in Chicago, forget the place as they only had 2 docks. The problem is you had to blindside back in under the "L". It was tight... That is one of the worst I had to do.

Oh and I was making a delivery in Manhattan, had to back down an alley. When I finished and went to leave, there was a van parked on the corner and I could not make the swing out. It was a no parking zone so I called the police and the ticket lady came out and started writing, well 3 tickets later, he still did not come out. Finally after about 1 1/2 hours he came out as she was calling for a tow truck.

 

In all my years driving the absolute worst dock I ever saw was Domino Sugar's warehouse in Baltimore MD. My gosh those docks were made for 96" trailers and you have a 102". Mirrors hit,doors hit,etc. Security guards were too busy writing accident reports to even know who was next to load. What a nightmare!

 

This one is super annoying...no clue where it was or who the customer was, but took about 45 minutes to back into what should have been an easy dock. Welllll...the lot was at a very odd angle, my air governor was screwed up (could not build air pressure at idle, worked fine at any other speed...I sometimes woke up to the sound of the low air buzzer...), and because of the angle i was using the brake pedal instead of the fuel pedal. Kept running out of air, and in general just having a rough time. parking lot was a LITLE BIT tight, but if the yard would have been flat it wouldnt have been such an issue. But atleast they were just happy to have their freight, I was out of there 20 minutes later.

I thought this one was pretty funny: Estes in Las Vegas...had to back my 53' into a door in between two 28' pups. Something I had NEVER had to do before....my LTL loads almost always were "drop it in the middle of the yard and we'll deal with it". Well, it was a nice size lot, but there were a bunch of daycab bobtails parked in front of the dock, and I had to 90 into it, and could not see the 28 footer on the passenger side at all. had to GOAL a lot. By the time I got it straight, well, that was the hardest I ever bumped a dock....I had forgotten that my trailer was twice as long as every other trailer at that building. I bet the dock workers thought it was an earth quake!!