ICC bumper damage enough to put it out of service?

Picked up this empty today. Was driving right past our shop to pick up next load. I put the trailer OOS and the mechanics took pics. Swapped for a freshly DOT’d trailer. Sent a message over Qualcomm. You would think that’s the end and good job driver. Of course not.

Dip head driver manager has someone else call me to tell me not to drop and go get loaded. His reasoning is he’s trying to get everyone in before the next snowstorm. It’s very very light flurries at the moment. He didn’t have these feeling this morning when the roads were actually bad. Also, this pick up is literally 2 miles from the yard.

Told them all that the bolts are sheared off on both ends. If someone hits that bumper and it doesn’t do its job, I and the company could be liable. Dash cams, traffic cams etc. Or an investigator just looking and knowing the bumper was compromised before hand. Maybe it would do its job. Who knows.

What do you guys think? Won’t sway my thinking. Just curious.

 

Correct call by you on any level.

 

You did the right thing.

 

Why don't you just have an experiment. Hook back up to the trailer. Then drive it around front and back it over the DM's car. If the bumper breaks while you are grinding the car into the pavement, then it would prove that you made the right call. If the bumper doesn't break and grinds the car into the pavement from front to rear, just make a half hearted apology to the DM stating that he was apparently right after all.

 

Thankfully all the office turds are 42 miles away north of Pittsburgh. All we have at our terminal is drivers and mechanics and boy is it nice. And 42 miles is just far enough that I won’t drive their after work and try to strangle one of them.

 

I would have gone the 2 miles and gotten loaded.

 

Only problem is that’s what dispatch wants. Once it’s loaded there’s no time for the shop because the load has to be delivered. So they won’t let it go into shop status. Then it gets thrown back out into the system. I don’t let them do that. They don’t care if the trailers ever get inspected or repaired.

 

I would have loaded it, and started trucking. However, what you did was good.

 

I’m local and paid by the hour, so taking care of stuff like this isn’t a big deal. I only work 9-12 hours a day.

 

You done good!