Pre & Post Trip Inspections Required?

Exactly.
Although I do have a couple ways to be satisfied. Have someone you 100% trust do the inspection. Co-driver, mechanic, or even someone off the street you hired to do the pre-trip every morning. I'm not saying it's practical, just possible. Mainly it's not practicable as I don't think I would trust anyone, even my wife if she was a co-driver (so knew what to look for), that much.

Another is a brand new truck off the factory floor. Again, I've been delivering to GM and see what comes off the floor. I'll still inspect, thank you very much!

 

Do your pre trip, check your #### for real, log it the way the book says. If something happens and you pencil ####it , it will be bad for you if the lawyers can prove it.

 

Question 2: Does §396.11require that the power unit and the trailer be inspected?

Guidance: Yes.

Not sure how the above guidance can be interpreted any other way than yes

 

I understand where you are coming from, but I still disagree. You specifically said the regs state X I simply said the regs do not state X.

If you would have said something like "It's stupid not to pre-trip" I would agree. To say a pre-trip is required by the regs is simply false.

We are professionals (so we like to tell our self anyway) so we should present facts and opinions clearly and not confuse the two. Presenting an opinion as a fact simply makes the person you are trying to help not listen when they find it you lied, or at least were mistaken. That helps no one.

Kinda like students are taught the 12-34-34 rule as it's easy. All it does is simply make people like the 1 year veteran that posted earlier today (Yesterday?) thinking 12k is the absolute rule. Again, helps no one. We are all adults here, I try and treat most as such.

So by all means tell someone it's best to do at least a 15 minute pre-trip. I'll endorse it whole heartily, usually by not contributing anything, and still agreeing.

Now this I whole heartily agree with. My current favorite is Yard Moves. In the guidance it says it's on-duty driving, while the (ELD) regs state it's on-duty, not driving. But yes, there are a ton of them.

 

The one issue I have run into in the past is bad companies with horrible dispatchers and shop managers who could care less about the DVIR papers. You hand one in properly filled out with beautiful handwriting, defects to fix and signed by yours truly and the behavior I got was as if I handed some one a 1 month old rotted fish.

That truck just wont get fixed at the company shop.

Enter the 76 or TA later.

Begin the sequence of yelling and verbal abuse vs me, the idiot who DARES get the defect fixed and incur a expense that now must be paid away from their pockets. How dare I?

You would think after being abused like that, I became at the point where I did not give a *I&^% about that truck. If it's broke DOT can *&^% well write the citation and fixit OOS order at the scales for all I care.

It's but a small step for me from trying to be professional and mistreated to where Im worse off and just as bad as the bums in a bad company who wont spend a cent or be bothered to have a truck where everything works. My first company "Port East" of baltimore was really bad about this. I wrote the owner when I quit a long time ago a letter detailing just how ####ting his equiptment really was compared to the multi thousand dollar valued colonial wood furnaturing in his front lobby for show to visitors potentially bringing in more business for him. I hate to be difficult. To his credit he started buying long macks with short sleepers to allow drivers to rest at least properly waiting for that ship or a chassis to bring back home all day from Norfolk in addition to opening up Florida as a potential high dollar run. (A box from Baltimore to Florida paid I think 1500 dollars where necessary however it could be a week or more before you got back so there is that.)

I think at that time of employ with him I was 21 or so, trying to act like a 40 year old and constantly told to go back and play with the elementry kids in recess, Adults are at work. Ahem excuse me? If they wont do these things then eff them, why should I risk my life, class A, fiances and so on supporting such a corrupted and rotting outfit that already has problems day and day out with those #### Secans. Follow me?

I have tried in my own way to be equally profane and dig in my heels to demand the shop fix this DVIR. The laughing in the shop or dispatcher office is equal to a biker club laughing at a preteen demanding redress in a squeaky non manly voice. They are patted on the head and told to run along child, adults are busy here.

It would take me years to find the right company with the right culture that they shall fix that DVIR and or issue a tractor that is in good condtion until the old one is being worked on.

I get a little bit angry when I think about all that wasted spun effort.

 

Might wanna post the whole guidance next time, it's not that long. See, what you posted, and what the guidance says are two completely different things..
Then there is the fact that it's simply guidance. I've been told (IIRC by you, but I could be wrong on that) that guidance doesn't matter. Sure that was in regards to PC before the new guidance came out, but still...
I can list a number of guidance that are flat out wrong. Either outdated (referring to the 8 hour break) or simply flat out wrong thanks to newer laws (Yard Moves)

Question 2: Does §396.11 require that the power unit and the trailer be inspected?

Guidance: Yes. A driver must be satisfied that both the power unit and the trailer are in safe operating condition before operating the combination.


Nothing there says the driver must do the inspection. The guidance you posted also says the driver must be satisfied. NOT that the driver must do the inspection.

 

Disappointing. The guidance clearly supports what you and I have been saying, it was right there for him to read, and yet he edited out that which supported our contention. Why? In order to be "right"?

 

I don’t recall saying THE DRIVER must do the inspection.

It’s clear from the guidance they an inspection must be done (by someone). AND the driver must be satisfied that the units are safe which means not only must an inspection be done, THEY MUST ALSO PASS said inspection. It is not enough to inspect and roll.

Is this not clear? It’s clear to me.

To paraphrase the guidance, “someone must inspect but the driver must sign off.”

 

Then you need to go back and read the op's question. He is asking about performing pre and post trip and logging it. @ZVar and I pointed out that strictly speaking there is no requirement to perform either, nor to log it.

Perhaps you could tell me what you meant in your post besides that the driver must perform it?

 

That was changed a few years ago and applies to carriers of all sizes. If no defects are found you no longer have to fill out and retain the inspection report. You still must do the insoection, it just eased the paperwork and storage aspect of it.

That's just for the usa, canada still requires it so if you run north of the border you gotta keep doing it