My "Super"visor will not take my pre trip inspections.

In the not too distant past, the company I worked for did not know any DOT rules, nor did they care. Log books were a nusiance, pre and post trip inspections? Come on. Hours of service, maintenance, everything was overlooked.

I have seen trailers there with inspections over two years out of date. Drivers were forced to drive all day, go home a few hours, and leave again.

The tractors thankfully were lease trucks, and I always kept mine repaired. I pulled a tank, so it stayed with the truck, and was kept up by me also.

I found loose lug nuts on a box trailer, showed it to the boss, and one year later the nuts were still loose, but now ready to fall off.

If it wasn't for the leasing company we would not have had any inspection books at all. The boss said if drivers wanted a log book, they could buy their own. I ran local and kepy my own hours of service and turned them in every week, even though he did not want it.

This company got by with more stuff than anyone I have ever seen.

It's not always the drivers fault. I did everything to stay as legal as possible, including refusing to drive because of equipment and hours, but I could afford to take a stand. Some of the drivers could not financially afford to, and had to do as told.

 

your absoloutly right kris, there is no need for sarcasim but evn though your new out here sounds like you already no more them the hands making the smart remarks guess they started knowing everything NOT just keep asking questions my friend that is the way you learn and the way you stay out of trouble.
take care my friend and good luck. SOUTHERENPRIDE

 

inspection books can be bought at the truckstop

 

Part of the pre-trip should be to check the post trip from the previous day and see if it was checked off with no defects or if the mechanic signed off defects as corrected . You are supposed to sign an acceptence before operating the vehicle . One copy of the DVIR should remain in the vehicle .

 

Well lets put it this way! Several ways actually! Maybe it will help you to understand a little. Now I am only assuming this to your advantage and of course the company some what!

Ok the end of day comes and you leave with no post-trip.
Now you come in and do a pre-trip (hopefully your not in a hurry and forget to do it) and find the truck needs repairs. Well darn it's going to take 5 hours and there is no other truck you can use. Now could this have been fixed while you was at home relaxing had you done a very good thorough post-trip inspection and notified the company?

What I feel is happening for more bad equipment is drivers are not doing post-trips and they wake up ready to go, lose track of time or you don't want to take the time out of your 14 hour getting your truck fixed even though it should be fixed so they put it off and put it off.

Many drivers think they can do a pre-trip whenever they stop to get fuel, this really defeats the whole point of a pre-trip!
It's for your safety & the publics to do a pre-trip.

Also to drivers advantage if you do a post-trip line 4 at the end of the day it's not really affecting your 14 hour day! So the only thing it does is eat your 70 hour which it would anyhow! So take the time and do a good post-trip and maybe we can see the accidents/deaths go down in this world.

This isn't only for you but all drivers reading this

The regs are the regs but understand how it benefits you and it doesn't seem so bad doing it

 

Im curious to know the outcome . But you should understand the post-trip is the one should be done in writing so you might want to start doing that so you don't get in trouble with DOT yourself.

 

You asked what to do with a particular part of you pre/post trip report. If you have a shop at your yard, your suppose to give one copy to the mechanic, one copy to your boss, and the other you keep for your records.. If I were you no matter how new, and how good the pay is, you do not drive a truck you feel is unsafe to drive period end of story.. Most companies will take advantage of new bee drivers, and make them feel that if you don't do what you told, then your fired. That's fine with me, as I would rather have no job, then work in an unsafe environment, and end up in jail, if my truck took the life of another person..