Dot inspection

I have a contact whom works in the safety dept of one of the top 10 mega carriers in the country. I speak to this person several times a month and in Facebook most every day. One thing this person told me is the data supports several things. The average driver lacks the ability for whatever reason to make a good inspection on a trailer. They just back under and off they go. They won't check the tires or lights. They won't check the legals either. All they do is find the bills and like the wind they are gone. The CSA hits the carrier gets support these lacks of inspections. Drivers also seem to be so dang job scared they will not stand up to operations when they see a defective trailer. Yes the main point of being in business is service, but at some point operations must come to understand over time these bad CSA scores hurt. The driver is the FINAL link in this chain. many times I would call the company about a bad trailer (even loaded ones) and go get in the bunk. I respected the bosses at operations, but I also refused to move that truck. This was why in my last few years I kept a printer in my truck and had a smartphone that gave me internet access so I could print a permit from a PDF. I'm sorry, but there is no excuse for a driver to get a bad inspection and an OOS order.

 

I take photos of every tractor and every trailer, close ups of the damage, before I log into the elog, always. you can delete them later if you want, but upload them to Google drive, that way I can access the pics from any computer, the meta tags on the picture will show date and time take. Not a bad idea to forward them to your safety department. If it has a safety issue I do not pull it, don't care what the reason are I do not pull it if it is not safe, period.

If you choose to drive or pull a defective piece of equipment it is absolutely on you and only you.

 

We just moved to the Isaac Elog system. It's tablet based so you can remove it from it's cradle, take pics of the unsatisfactory inspection item and send it off over the airwaves. Pretty cool. Unfortunately, everything else about the system suks.

 

I'm not sure how to even reply. I don't recall in that comment you pulled and quoted even mentioning the ICC Bumper! I admit sometimes I would not physically look at the kingpin before backing under but most times I did. I would get my bills and make a quick check to make sure I had a working reefer if empty and that the reefer was holding the temps listed on the bills if loaded and the trailer's legals were there and current. Outside of this I woud do a walk around with the lights on checking the lights, tires and listening for air leaks. I would also take note of the tag, ICC bumper and mudflaps while behind the trailer. I would also make sure I had a secure seal and took note of the last 3 numbers to make sure the seal number matched what was on the bills. Believe it or not every once in a blue moon there was a seal bills mismatch. That whole inspection took me maybe 5 minutes.