Have you ever ripped your airlines off?

Be glad they put the landing gear down or it would have been tons of fun.

 

Go easy on your guys; we've all done that at least once in our career.

 

The first time I did it.
It was on the very first day I started with new company 1991 will never forget it. Lmao.

 

Luckily I have never ripped the lines but I have certainly forgotten to unhook them a time or three. It’s easy to do.

I have my own little routine I follow when hooking/unhooking a trailer, doing pretrips, etc. all it takes is one small distraction and I mess the whole thing up.

 

I haven't ripped them off yet, but many years ago I forgot to unhook them and they came flying back to the cab after disconnecting. I was in a daycab, and they shattered the window behind me. Scared the poop out of me...

 

Last year I was given an old kW 104 aerodyne it been sitting out in the sun for so long the air hoses had became so brittle when I did a sharp turn they snapped than goodness I was on a gravel road and just dragg

 

Nah, but I've helped a few guys out that have dropped trailers in the middle of the street.

Heard stories of guys coming to a stop and having their air lines destroyed by the sheet of ice that slides off the top of the trailer.

 

If 4 truckers cannot do it, you have to do it yourself.

I digress. I don't want to be any more difficult than I am already sometimes.

I have watched flatbedders in DM Bowman's Frederick Yard back in the load, wind gear down, stumble back into the tractor (They have had a 16 hour to a 20 hour day some times... and it's 4 am, not finished yet for some.) forward they go. Trailer comes off 5th wheel onto landing gear, airlines stretch and come off the trailer clanking against the back window causing the tired driver to stop instantly and wonder what just happened.

Usually happens faster than you can get a mike on the radio and say whoa there driver your lines are still on there. (Never mind the problem of about 200,000 truckers in the DC area hearing that little call that early in the AM and all checking airlines...) They figure it out, put the airlines away onto the brackets and go park the bobtail then home. Most of time time I don't say a word. If the bosses aint seen it, it didnt happen. No harm done.

Once or twice that trailer did come off that 5th wheel in my life time with me in that tractor on the highway. When a trailer wants off well... it's coming off. Your ability to keep a job or your freedom depends on if that trailer hurting or killing someone or even breaking something.

I feel like i am talking to the choir. I just find it interesting that 4 professional drivers cannot properly unhook and have a tractor and trailer separated as asked to when they were supposed to do it. It's almost like anyone can do it, someone did or did not and no body did something right somewhere and so on.

If I was the one writing checks, I reckon the losses of the damage and each of the 4 will have slightly lighter checks with the pleasure of having equiptment that probably is in much better working order after their contributed repairs are completed. Sometimes thats the only way employees learn, lord knows my bosses took money out of my check for a tire or something else or other now and then and I had the pleasure to take it home. It's the only way I learned sometimes.

 

yeah, well you discovered something..never be complacent in what is done by others.

each guy must have "thought" the other guy was "gonna do it"

more your fault, then theirs..better luck next time.