Question for Crude Drivers about overfilling a trailer

Have you tried halliburton? I don't believe they check DAC..

 

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If someone else left the caps off you should of caught that......

Sorry but it’s your fault even if you did load 180 bbl.... trailer wasn’t over loaded but as soon as you moved it the slosh back and forth blew it out thru the caps.....

Move on.... forget the suit.

 

Sorry but you messed up/not prepared for the job. Stop the excuses. And the drama. You will hire on somewhere else. Others have been there, done that and survived.

 

Cat sdp is right about his comment. You have the right to refuse unsafe work and if your trailer would fail initial pre-trip, it was up to you to refuse using it. If you were unsure of certain plumbing, it shows you were inadequately trained by the company. You may be able to go off this fact, when/if consulting a lawyer. Maybe consult a lawyer first, with the improper training claim... and direction as how to write a legally threatening letter to your former employer.
The fact that the company was using a tagged-out trailer, shows fault on their part (which happens more than you know) but ultimately, you made the decision to use it. If they fired you, based on refusal to use unsafe equipment, then you'd really have a law-suit.
Also you should have a driver copy of the load you "over-loaded", which should indicate barrels hauled. This will prove you didn't over-load the trailer. But still, it would be an uphill battle and expensive, to prove you were inadequately trained.

 

Probably blow the gaskets and weep out the caps

 

A lot of companies have a policy against drivers climbing the ladder to inspect the wash out caps and dome lid on top of the tanker. There was an issue with tankers coming back after their VIKL inspections. The tank must be washed out and the dome lid was being left open. Some drivers went out to leases and once they began to drive off oil would slosh out the top of the dome lid into the crash box and then rain down the drain tube onto the ground.

When drivers have spills we would have meetings where we sat in with the driver at fault and looked for all the root causes which occurred and led up to the event. Most of the time an overfill occurred because the driver was seated in the truck or seated outside in a lawn chair and fell asleep. That is why you see some companies ban the use of lawn chairs by their drivers while loading and offloading.

I have seen numerous spills documented. Most of the time it just left the vent line and went onto the ground. I do believe if you have the vent line attached to a hose and return line at the lease which exits back to the tanks it will be pumped back into the tank but if the pump is running too fast it can't exit a 2" line fast enough and will then blow out into the crash box. I have never seen an event where the oil exited the wash out caps if they were properly installed,

Also I have seen an event where mechanics left a part of the pump off during maintenance on a tanker that was loaded. When the driver went to offload the oil and opened the valves on the tanker the oil gushed out the bottom of the pump. The driver was blamed because ultimately we are supposed to catch that stuff in a pretrip. However the part that was missing was on the bottom of the pump, it was dark during the pretrip and I know I never climb under there and look that close so I could have just as easily missed it.

It has been the policy of every company I have worked for to document any incidents including spills with a camera and provide that to supervisors and the safety department. I do not understand why you have no photos of the incident. You know what they say in the oilfield, CYA!

If you did only spill a barrel and they put it on your DAC then that is some BS! I've seen drivers overflow tanks while offloading and keep their jobs. And they spilled way more than a barrel. It sounds like someone had it out for you.

 

It will help to define barrels into gallons and indirectly into weight involved for those of us wondering what the heck is 200 barrels. (At 49 gallons a barrel you are suddenly considering a 9800 gallon tanker load.)

A question.

How hard is it to take a look over your trailer and tractor early in the morning and deem it safe or unsafe to use today until such a such a widget is fixed or kept in required order etc.

Why are we drivers paid so much money to do so little or no work at all ensuring that the trailers are able to have what they need to run the oil in a professional manner.