Old Dominion Freight Lines - Thomasville, N.C.

mack this is just for you, i dont care if YOU DONT COMMENCE BASHING OF OLD DOMINION OR NOT. the good thing about this forum i can bring forth my opinion and that sir is just that, my opinion, you dont like it STAY OFF THIS FORUM.

To offer a rebuttal to your statement you thought that i might have gotten the trailers switched around and possibly had the heavier trailer on the tail and the answer is no. they were weighed prior to departure and the heavier trailer was in the lead position.

Iam sorry if in your opinion something doesn't ADD UP, but I am simply stating the facts as to what occured and the opinions of the investigative officers at the scene.

If your love for OD has blinded you to a wrong that has been committed against one of your fellow drivers than for that i bid you good day

 

Mack expressed his opinion. I read it and seen nothing out of line. Why should he stay off this Forum? If you don't like someone posting to your post then maybe you should stay off the forum.

 

Well it's not just for MACK now!

YES the GOOD thing about this FORUM is that we allow all to speak their minds....which includes one of our BEST MODS..MACK who does speak his mind and give his opinion.

IF YOU don't like his opinion then you have the right to not read his posts or to reply to them and let it go in one ear and out the other.

 

Mack, CyberGal, PERFECTLY stated, I agree. Mods have minds too, hey...that's our new motto! LOL. Trust me, I DO have some of my very own strong opinions...and WILL state them as tactfully as I can, of course...

 

mack the reason for my being indigient is not from credibility issues but from the fact that i am out of a job, and with a preventable accident upon my record. Now I know that i will have little trouble finding another job-just not one that compares with the previous.

Now lets talk about my credibility. Maybe you are having trouble understanding as to how a rear trailer will turn over from a low speed turn, let my explain. While in the process of my left hand turn, the pintle hook on the lead trailer BROKE causing the set of trailers to seperate. when you look at the velocity of motion in regards to the circumferance of the turn radius the trailer had nowhere to go but upon its side for the dolly is no designed to hold up the trailer merely to keep it connected to the one in front of it. With that being said I will gladly email you a copy of the accident report and your more that welcome to verify my story however you so choose, as for a public apology, none needed, i just needed to get this matter out in the open because i really dont have a lot of good feeling towards old dominion right now.

 

No one here has an issue with the fact that you stated an opinion. The problem arose when you told mack to stay off the forum. Now what your problem is the the pintle hook. Did you write it up on your inspection? That is where they will get you if you did not. It is your job to make sure it is safe. When something like that breaks usually there is a stess factor. There will be eveidence of a crack of some kind. When the broken end is looked at they will know by the break if it was cracked prior to. This is what will determine if you failed to make sure your equipment was road ready. If it was not safe then you will be held for the reason the accident occured.

 

I certainly don't want to revive any hard feelings here, but I'm inclined to agree that there may be something missing here....

I cannot imagine how the company or an accident review board could hold a nine-year employee and driver responsible for an accident where the cause was due to metal failure that would not be easy to predict or foresee in a pre-trip inspection.

It would appear to me that if it was in such a condition that it would break so easily, and under such low forces, as would have been the case in starting from a stop, there was a problem with the metal. Who looks for such things?

I can see how the trailer could tip with a jerk of the safety chain, just as it could in any situation where the center of gravity is compromised. High speed or low speed, if the trailer is corrected too quickly, it can go over.

The pintle hook, a rather thick piece of metal, broke....it's extremely abnormal for a pintle hook to break, or at least I would think so.

One question I would have, would to ask were there any other issues involved here, such as other accidents or incidents, where this one tipped the scale and was the company was looking for a reason to let the man go?

If the man's history with the company was clean, and this one accident was ruled against him, which doesn't seem correct in my opinion under the criteria that I have studied many times, I am baffled as to why they would cut him loose over one accident, and especially for one of this nature.

The criteria is simple. If the driver in any manner could have taken any action prior to that accident to have prevented it, then it can be determined to be preventable in nature.

The issue here, and the cause was equipment failure of a metallic nature. That metal was cast iron in nature, and casted material does not often give any indication that it is about to fail. You will not see cracks or rust indications in it. Stress and time will lend to a metal fatigue condition, and it will just snap without warning, as it apparently did in this case.

How many drivers have seen a pintle hook fail in that manner, or monitor the back pup to assure that this has not happened? The expectation is that it is a solid piece of metal, and that it will not fail. We assume this, just like we assume that when a traffic light turns red, that no one will disregard it and not stop.

A thought just occurred to me. Is it possible that the review board ruled the way they did, and is assuming that the pintle hook broke AS A RESULT of the pup turning over?

If this happened to me, and all is as it has been presented, I'd be a little more than upset too. It's a bizarre accident, and relatively minor at that.

So to close this out, cmrhine...if all that you have offered is correct, you absolutely ought to go after OD legally for a wrongful termination lawsuit, and to have them clear your record of this accident. It's what I would do, if this happened to me.

 

I would have to disagree. I have found a kingpin with a crack in it and it was repaired. It was not an easy find either. Had it snapped while I was going down the road loaded, who knows what would have happened? A family beside me could have been killed when the trailer fell on them. I never said it was easy to find such defects, but it is the drivers job to do make sure it is road safe. Not saying this is the case, but so many drivers do their pretrip from the cab. You will never always catch everything, but I am willing to bet he will look closer at the next set of wiggles he pulls.

 

I hope you mean that it was replaced, because a "kingpin" could not be repaired. I wouldn't pull a trailer where someone would have welded a crack on a kingpin. That would tremendously weaken it's structure. It is also illegal as can be, to repair (i.e. weld) any defect in a direct coupling device on a class eight vehicle. CVSA criteria specifies that kingpins and fifth wheel plates must be replaced when they are found defective. Support structures, such as fifth wheel mounting brackets and plating on the underside of the trailer CAN be repaired (i.e. welded) as long as the defect is minor in nature and not directly in contact with the coupling device itself.

I agree, but the driver is not responsible for inspecting the actual condition of the "kingpin" on a trailer. It is not part of the pre-trip inspection criteria. You made a good catch, and an unusual one at that.

Coupling devices are to be thoroughly inspected as part of the quarterly and annual equipment inspections that are required by the FMCSA to be performed on behalf of the motor carrier, and they are to be performed by a qualified mechanic and repair facility.

The standard pintle hook coupling device is made from forge treated cast iron, and would not be subject to external stress cracking. By the time you may see a crack on the outside, it would fall apart with the tap of a hammer.

The CVSA criteria only requires the driver during a pre-trip inspection to observe that the pintle hook clasp is securely locked in place to prevent the towing eye from coming out over the hook.

CVSA Inspection criteria does not even specify that coupling devices are to be looked at in roadside inspections, with one exception. Level I criteria specifies that they are to check for fifth wheel slack. To date though, I have yet to have had an inspector to ask me to demonstrate that I do not have excessive slack.

I agree that many drivers do not do their pre-trips, and it bites them every now and then. In this case though, the driver may have been held responsible for something that he should not have been.