well that was a miserable fail

over axle is their fault??

 

That sounds painful. Will you tell us the company after last check arrives in mail... and clears the bank?

 

Hang in there, Peabody747, I went through my share of 3-month wonders back in the day... sucks about the 'over axle' fine. Let me tell ya about a fine I picked up one time in Arizona...

I went to a shipper in Chino and they loaded my wagon as a large storm was moving into the L.A. Basin and outlying areas... a storm that eventually killed 10 people, aye? Couldn't find a scale nearby, and the roads were already a nightmare clusterf#% with wrecks & fender-benders galore. So I told myself I'd run to Thousand Palms and scale the load there at the Hook, then shut down and let the storm pass overhead. Well, I made it to Thousand Palms and the scale was shut down, it needed calibration or whatever so it was out of service. The weather was already too nasty to go back out on the road and hit Coachella, so I just shut down as planned and figured I'd deal with it the following morning.

Well, long story short, I didn't scale the load at Coachella because the offramp was all backed up onto I-10, so I said to myself, "F#% it, I'll just explain the circumstances to the AZ D.O.T. bears at the chickenhouse and maybe they'll let me slide my wagon and make things right." Bad plan... once I rolled onto the scale, I was not only over axle but also over gross, to the tune of 4600 lbs., and that was my fine, $4600, basically a dollar for each pound overweight. And the douchebag who gave me the fine didn't give a #### about the violent storm which had already killed 10 people (I saw the death toll in the paper that morning), it was all about revenue collection for that scumbag. That fine p!ssed me off too, I almost threw my CDL-A in the trash because of it, but I wound up borrowing the money from family & friends and working it off later...

So that was MY fine, hand... like buying a used car but never actually getting the car, lol. I can look back and laugh about it now, but it darned sure wasn't funny at the time... meh, these things happen in the trucking industry, and sometimes a driver has to learn the hard way. I reckon the moral of the story is for drivers to ALWAYS scale a load ASAP before rolling across any D.O.T. scales, as those douchebags aren't likely to cut ya any slack, regardless of circumstances. I thought that the death toll levied by the storm would make a difference, but nobody cared about that, it was "business as usual" for the AZ D.O.T., lol. Needless to say, I didn't work for that outfit much longer either, as they made no effort to help me during that fiasco. Remember, IT'S ALWAYS THE TRUCK DRIVER'S FAULT!!! Lol... hope that little story makes ya feel better, with luck your fine wasn't anywhere near as large. CHEERS!!!

 

Okay, calm down, we've all been there. The fine is clearly your baby, but sounds like you got more of an education AFTER school. The dock loads the wagon the way YOU tell them, not what the company says. Hey, if this company bums you out, there are plenty more. My advice, is wait for Chinatown, give a location, and he can name a dozen places to go, all accepting drivers like you. It's a drivers market, and you don't need to put up with a shabby company. Take a small break, find another company, and return at full pace.

 

I was a trainer for swift long long time ago. Every student i picked up, that went to their school in Phoenix had no idea about sliding trailer axles...
Or for that fact, that they were not going to see home for 6 weeks- that caused some to leave

 

Forgot to mention that the shipper in Chino put an INCORRECT (LOWER) WEIGHT on the BOL, which was a factor in my decision to run the gauntlet at the D.O.T. chickenhouse... I thought that, at the worst, I'd just be 'over axle' and nowhere near 'over gross.' I look back upon that whole scene with the killer storm and the bad traffic and all the wrecks and whatnot, and it was a case of circumstances piling up and forcing me to try and make the right decision. But since I'm still discussing that fiasco, let it be another teachable moment: you younger hands just starting out, NEVER take it for granted that the shipper has the CORRECT WEIGHT listed on the BOL or manifest. Trust a CAT scale, but not a shipper...

As far as sliders go, I mentioned a neat trick in a different thread, and since this is winter in the northern hemisphere, I'll mention it again. If you're having trouble working wagon sliders on icy pavement, you can roll forward or backward at low speed and use your trolley valve to get the job done. Some water thrown on slider rails will also help things break free, but ya gotta move fast so that water doesn't just freeze to the rails and add to the problem. If you're dealing with sticky pins, it's best to get another hand to help you while you're behind the wheel... that hand can pull that slider pin while you sit behind the steering wheel and relieve the pressure on it (whichever way that happens to be, sometimes you exert a little forward pressure, sometimes reverse).

Hope those tips help some hands dealing with their first winter... cold weather brings additional challenges to a driver, and not always when the truck is rolling down the road.