telling me to drive on a bad steer

Not my feelings, just my CDL.

 

Lol, maybe by Tuesday.

 

Over gross doesn’t carry any CSA points nor affect your PSP. A bad steer tire with an OOS......whole different story

 

i would still have done it

 

Asking a scalehouse to do an inspection on your truck when you know it has an OOS defect is akin to having a wolf guard your chickens from a fox.........

 

Kolorado,

Bad Front Shocks will help deform Tread yet they're not the singular Problem.
From Your Pictures, That Tire would have been noticeably shaking the Steerin' Wheel at 65+.

I drove ONE Truck about 600 miles with a Bad Left Steer Shock to get Home...ONCE!!
At Base were installed 2 New Shocks and I think 1 New Steer.

0300 even RAINING does not mean "overlook the Tires".
Steer Tire Blows at 65+, depending upon terrain and day or night, I guess it may cause a Bad Result.
I've NEVER had a Steer Tire Blowout.

I've aired up 18 Tires in Rain and Snow on a few Combos.
I used a Quality Air Gauge about 2 times a week on ALL Tires as well doing thorough Tire Inspections along with Components.

It's called SAFETY INSPECTIONS which help PROTECT YOU!
Sometimes "things happen" to the Best of Equipment as well the Best of Drivers.
What Is YOUR LIFE WORTH?
- - - -
I drove briefly (about 2 months in 2009 [??]) for a Local Company in NC and in New Mexico in Winter, I realized the Company was failing when they said "Do not buy more than 75 Gallons of Fuel A DAY". "10-4, I won't be going far each day".
Got back to NC and cleaned out Truck.

GET BOTH STEERS REPLACED as well the Faulting Components or Limp the disaster Home and clean out!!

 

I don’t mean to down play any blown tire. There are a lot of ifs and maybes. But a blown steer can be put on the shoulder safely way more often than not. It’s not a guaranteed crash folks. Again I’m not saying take a chance with any tire that may blow....for the most part steel belted radial tires will not blow unless ran low of air. Most steer tire failures are from hitting something in the road mid trip and a loss of air pressure. You should feel one start pulling to one side outta no where when this happens.

irregular wear patterns don’t just suddenly pop up in 100 miles and go from ok to drive to OMG I can’t move another inch. If you look one over every day you are gonna catch this before it’s an issue.



Knots, soft spots, large chunks gone down the cords, and tires that have been ran low and gotten hot are what you need to be wary of.

 

Go to Dart , JR Schugel , Transport America or JB Hunt. I’ve driven for all of them and they are all good companies.

 

Two weeks ago a driver asked me to intervene with dispatch over a similar tire.

I told the driver to leave his trailer and bobtail to the tire shop, then come back and deliver the load. Then I called dispatch to inform him about what was happening. Dispatch had no idea the tire was that bad. Driver had messaged in that morning about the tire and dispatched replied "deliver the load and get it fixed after" as dispatch KNEW the customer had no empties and the tire shop was down the road from delivery, and dispatch KNEW the driver had bobtailed out from his last delivery the day before and drove past not ONE but TWO shops that could have swapped his steers in less than 30 minutes, no questions asked, so it couldn't be 'that bad'. Instead of stopping and getting his crud taken care of, the 'driver' just parked the truck and went home. The 'Driver' had been driving on a bad steer for at least a week but "only noticed it" at his pretrip that morning. 'Dispatch' drove for 15 years before coming 'in house' for another 15 years. Dude expects drivers to notice this stuff before it is an actual problem.

I have no problem standing up to Dispatch for other drivers. I know FMCSA rules, I know company policy, and I am in no way worried about being fired. Time and again, when I pick up my (metaphorical) baseball bat to force Dispatch to comply to both the law and company policy I find that the driver did NOTHING to effectively communicate the problem to Dispatch.

Tires like this don't "just happen". Tires become flat with little to no warning. Tires blow with NO warning (got a trailer tire replaced, blew less than 100 miles down the road; ran a trailer thru the shop for an AVI, tire blew as I got on the interstate). Bad tread doesn't "just happen". The driver needs to be proactive. My company policy is that any steer under 5/32 ANYWHERE on the tread gets replaced at any company shop or GYTC. There is no way a driver can run a tire from 5/32 to 4/32 without having a convenient opportunity to get the tire swapped.

 

I do not suggest texts in scenarios like this because I think it would be the best way to communicate. I suggest texts when there is a problem, and it seems as if the person on the other side of the phone is trying to make a driver do something stupid, without leaving a document trail behind them.

I fully agree that in a good working relationship, it really is better to use the phone. You can solve a problem or plan a load much faster on the phone than by texting, in my experience. In my case that's mostly because I tend to try and keep the left door closed at least 10 hours a day, so working through things on the phone is best unless I'm in a metro area.