Landing gear

Dropping trailers so all the weight is lifted off the ground as the tractor slides under it is working smarter rather than harder. But like many parts of trucking it's easier to train a snapping turtle to fly supersonic than it is to get a driver to change a habit, even if it is easier, safer.

Have you ever had a landing gear handle slip out of the low-gear while cranking a heavy trailer? Some trailers have worn mechanism and won't stay in the range you wish as you crank, you keep having to push/pull it back into the high/low cranking gear. When the trailer is heavily loaded requiring maximum driver effort and then it slips, bam.

Also, if the trailer is heavy, high, and has been dropped with too much push-back the landing gear stores that pressure and as some weight is transferred to the tractor, while cranking gear up, the sandfoot will scrap forward or back depending on whether the hooking driver has also pushed back or already tug tested the trailer.

Have you ever heard/felt the sandfoot of the trailer you are hooking to shift/scrape on the pavement it's sitting on while you raise the landing gear? If you have seen/heard that scrape that's the minor version of the situation that has led to injuries.

Where you supposed to store all this lumber in a daycab, for example?

 

You might have room on the catwalk. Secure it with bungees or a 1" strap and winch, available in any good truck stop. Make sure it won't touch the air lines.

 

I've never really had those problems. But yes, with a little creativity you can store some lumber on the cat walk, strapped to the back of the truck, etc. Depends on the truck. A little bit of lumber comes in handy so many different ways in trucking it's hard for me to see not having any, but then, I carry a lot of basic tools and many other drivers don't see the point.

 

And on trucks with no catwalk you store lumber where? I carry tons of gear with me. Other drivers frequently ask me if I'm moving to Mexico when they see me arriving at work. I can't find a place to carry lumber and I've spent months & years thinking of how to solve this problem or prepare to deal with it when the next driver is hired and we get the predictable flood of high trailers until someone trains him.

I can see the difficulty of trying to convince a Billboard Lawyer why strapping lumber to the truck frame was safe and proper.

 

Except on daycabs which are routinely asked to jack the tractor more than 90 deg. to get in doors OTR trucks can't, the nose of the trailer swings through all of the empty space between tractor and trailer.

This problem can and is easily solved just by leaving the landing gear a few turns off the ground. The proof is that EVERY driver we train in this manner over the last decade or two never is injured, and has yet to damage a tractor or trailer while doing it. Once the resistant drivers do this procedure they see & feel the benefit and become an "evangelist" when the next new-hire comes in and starts dropping high trailers for the rest of us. OTR drivers just don't think about the issue and are resistant to ANY advice.

 

tscottme, clearly you don't want to listen to ANY advice on this issue, and I suppose that's ok. The rest of us who aren't looking for BS workman's comp claims will continue to not injure ourselves whether a trailer is high or low dropped.

 

Proper drop and hook techniques, Level 9000 Swift expert trained style.

 

Yes a broken arm or broken ribs is a workman's comp bogus claim. And OTR drivers, as I mentioned several times, have a "hit-and-run" attitude about dropping trailers and how if effects the next driver. Got it.

 

Do you grease your 5th wheel each time before you hook a trailer?

Here are YT vids showing what I'm talking about. Warning, I can't swear on a stack of Bibles anyone in these videos is sin-free, has made a million dollars, or hasn't argued with someone on this message board, all of which will obviously invalidate everything they ever say or do.







https://youtu.be/4OeZpo21Gos