Trailer impounded at scale, any advice on it

Maintain your equipment better, pay the tickets, and hire a driver with two braincells that can do a simple pre-trip. Or maybe your forcing drivers to run bad equipment....

 

You'll want to try hard to keep these deficiencies off your NSC, but since these tickets would've been issued to your driver, it would be up to him to dispute them in court. If your driver can beat the tickets in court, that would be the only way to keep your NSC from getting dirtied up. A possible defense from the driver in court would be that the brake travel was within limits and there were no audible air leaks at the time of his pretrip (although we both know he didn't climb under the truck that morning to check travel, or listen for leaks). A better scenario would be if the officer didn't show up to court at all.

Preventing future occurrences isn't always so easy. Most drivers don't get paid to pre and post trip, and combined with some being just lazy in general, will not climb under the truck and check brakes very often, if at all. They just won't, unless you are physically there to force them to do so.

That all being said, a minor air leak and one chamber out of adjustment isn't the end of the world.

One of my old business associates from the industry runs a small fleet of trucks. I give this guy credit, since he's never at home just "counting the money." When a truck is in the yard, he will go through everything with a fine tooth comb. He will check the brakes, lights, lines, everything he can, and do repairs as necessary. That in itself is almost a full time job for him, but he knows drivers (since he was/is one), and knows the human nature of the driver. He knows if he doesn't check and maintain his equipment, nobody else will!

 

If you cannot be bothered to give a #### and spend a dollar to ensure your trucks are in good condition and foster a culture of taking 5 #### minutes away from impatient dispatchers (Fire the impatient ones, they will just bury themselves into a early grave....) to check that tractor trailer.

FFE had mechanics in Lancaster just inside the gate and fuel line. Its impossible to get a rig into the company property. ONCE in a while my T/T fails the mechanic's pretrip but passed mine early in the day or night whatever it may be. Now that the mechanic found something I drop the trailer off and find a corner bobtail. We will get another load drop and hook. Or grab a Empty and mosey off to MM & Mars to load candy for Menlo Park NJ which usually reloads right back to Waco Texas. One of our favorite runs when based on very little accumulated BS.

 

Figure out an incentive plan for your drivers if they find a defect and get it repaired. I'm sure you're not paying them to do a pretrip or their down time to get the repair done.