Miscellaneous truck damage

When I receive a tractor I comb that truck front to back top to bottom. I always take pictures and videos that have me stating the current date where I am at and what are the damages I’m seeing. I usually request who ever works for breakdown or safety to have me email it to them they don’t have to see it but the date I sent the email will be proof that the damages were truly there before I received it.

Trailer? Depends. Honestly trailers are expected to take some sort of ding or damage. I’ve seen many yard jockies scrape up trailers good often damaging the hooks that hold the trailer. Now I will report and picture any serious hits that compromise the trailer but any small scrape I’ll let my dm know trailers a little ragged many trailers end like this so it’s not much of a deal.

 

the truck go over like a fine-tooth comb report every little ninny detail take pictures take videos that's the game you have to play nowadays to CYA.
because there's a lot of shouting crooked companies that'll try to screw you every chance they get.

as for the trailers you can pretty much see the difference between new damage and old damage..
if you have a rusted out gouge in the trailers a lot of dings and dents you could tell what's been doing what's fresh. at least I can.
so many trailers with containers moving around by yard shunters sometimes sardine can of side of a trailer they put gouges and scratches many companies don't even bother to fix them but like I said you should be able to tell the difference between new damage and old damage..
also take a look at the year of the trailer if you're looking at a 2018 or 2019 and it's got the heck smashed out of it there's a good chance that just happen but if it's a 10 year old trailer over almost 10 years and see scrapes and scratches nine times out of 10 it's old damage
But on a assigned truck if is one of these companies don't give you brand new equipment when you start yes many do... take pictures of everything document every little Nick cranny scratch and scratch scrape you name it..

 

Having the timestamp enabled on a medium quality DSLR does the trick too, from a classmate's experience. Man ended up in a tractor that looked like it'd been joy ridden into hell and back, and upon getting called back for reassignment (because my company is pulling all the 2016 trucks) they tried to pin the damage on him. Almost have to treat your truck like a crime scene before you can live in and drive it, just to make sure you completely CYA

 

If you report all the "damage" you find they think your weird. If they find something you didn't report they suspect you damaged it. I guess it's safer to report EVERYTHING, but I suspect maybe 12 drivers in the country do that.

 

Report and document all damage found on equipment regardless if it's fresh or if it looks like it is 10 years old. Always get the name of the person that you report damage to, and follow up with a free form message on the QC acknowledging that you reported said damage.