Do you pre-trip?

There's a lot of things I do do, pretrip, postrip, during trip, but when it comes to tires and wheels, I'm a fanatic. One kick with the truckin boots and I can tell what's up. I also check tread surfaces constantly for road hazards(nails,screws,rail road spikes), an ounce of prevention. My current job, I move or use 20 some trailers so it can get a bit monotonous, but I won't move a trailer without kicking and eyeballing all tires. In the past week, I've called the tire guy twice, one of those times another driver had moved that trailer and left it with a hole in the sidewall, no bull.

 

You do a pre-trip for yourself. Not because the FMCSR says you do it. I've caught so many things while I was OTR it would have cost me a fortune if I let them go. 15 to 30 minutes is much better than hours in the shop. Driving the same truck everyday is a plus. You know the condition of critical parts and it's much easier.

 

Company reefer that dumps trucks at 300k has auto inflatable tires. Pulling the same truck and trailer everyday at 100k miles . Wake up set the eld to on duty start eating breakfast, brush my teeth do a lil trip planning if need be and push in the brakes and go. Sometimes don't even step out the truck. My truck gets inspected once a month by the shop . Anytime IV lost a light or have a leak or anything I know about it going down the road. Pre trips to me are just a waste of time if you aren't an owner operator , especially if you run new company equipment. Dot will get you for having a mustard stain on your shirt why would I waste all that time not going down the road when they are going to get you regardless.

 

I mean you could at least look at the tires.

 

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You'll hear it with those auto inflates plus the trailer has a light on the side that lights up when something is wrong. Those systems are expensive as hell that's why o/o don't mess with them, id rather use that time to eat a good breakfast and get ready for a good day of driving . Only thing I watch for is my steers when it comes to checking pressure and what not

 

The fun part of pre-trip comes when you find out someone put an empty beer can in front of one of your tires...

 

Maybe you'll change your tune when someone thinks it'll be funny to pull your 5th wheel latch and watch while you drive off hoping you'll drop your trailer, or stick a penny in your service line so you dont have any trailer brakes. Or a myriad of other stuff that can be done to screw with a driver.

 

Or a pressurized piss jug

 

I think I've only seen maybe 3 times a driver doing a pre trip all owner ops . It's less common than people think