New to driving.. crappy equipment... questions..

Tell your boss to fix this and refuse to drive until its fixed. Report them to DOT if they dont make repairs. If you kill someone do to your breaks failing, you could go to jail since you new there was an air leek before you left.

 

You have no experience. . And shorty equipment. ..... you need to put work in to get work.

Work a few months and start applying other places. If that company wasn't desperate they would have never hired you. That's the truth

 

Dont do that, there is no excuse for driving unsafe equipment. Report um to dot if you have to. In a few months you could wreck your driving record. Just becuase you dont have logs doesnt mean you dont need to physically do a pretrip inspection

 

I was talking about the bad job In general and the truck I didn't mean to drive it while it's leaking air etc

 

Great advise! I hope he uses it!

Even if you lose with them your still a winner! Why? Because if you keep doing it you will be a loser sooner or later! Can't believe truck drivers would say keep on keeping on driving an unsafe truck on public highways.

The son of a trucking company owner I use to drive for now has a local trucking company. His trucks & trailers looks as if they came from the junk yard. I'll see one of them once in a while & there's always defects that can be easily seen. Makes me wonder how many cannot be seen.

Sad, some will drive anything up & down our highways.

 

Another option is that some of these items that need repair aren't that bad. See if your boss is ok with you fixing stuff on the clock. Great experience for you understanding how to fix minor things, you look like a hero to the boss, and you reduce the risk of violations. Lights, some air-leaks, mudflaps, these are all easy and cheap to fix. But of course, safety first. Definitely fill out the DVIR and have the boss sign the part that says he inspected it and it's OK. You get pulled over throw him under the bus and hope cuz you're new the cop writes the tickets to the company instead of to you. That DVIR signed by the boss puts it on him in many cases.

 

One crap job vs your whole career and possibly jail time. Have you ever been in a court room? Vehicular man slaughter or any accident/injury cases the lawyers will tear you up. I have been at a few as a witness. It didn't go well for those in violation.

 

I DO NOT HAVE A COMPLETE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT I WILL SAY, BUT!!!! it is my understanding if you run delivery's in radius of certain commercial hubs there is no dot to worry about. research what i said for your self, again i do not know how that works.

there is a good chance some one who has the info mite chim in with the correct answer.

 

Hi mugurpe, this is actually pretty good advice. Many times, mechanics are overwhelmed with repairs, and they go on a most to least important repair (in their eyes). I did many repairs myself, and had the satisfaction of knowing the truck was as safe as I could get it. It seems nowadays, if you get stopped at a scale, or roadside check, you can't fix it yourself and have to call a service truck (which ain't cheap).A friend of mine got pulled over on the road, as the tail lights on the wagon were out.(pretty hard to see from the driver's seat). Friend said, no problem, I'll just put a paper clip under the plug on the trailer, lights came on ( old school, done it a lot of times), cop said, no good, and radioed a service truck to come and put a new plug on the trailer.

 

I don't believe there are any dot free zones. They can and will show up anywhere.