where can I buy a gladhand lock?

There on the wall next to the gafilta fish filters.

 

They do sell them at truck stops but they are frequently not in stock so call first or just keep looking. As to the question of actual security, yeah they are just to keep honest folks honest and send lazy crooks on to easier prey like most all security features but they do serve some useful purposes mostly in mega fleets, although the carrier and your fellow drivers won't like some of the uses.

One is when you find an empty (we all know how finding an empty can be) and want to claim it but also need to bobtail somewhere before hooking up like the shop or a store. The carrier discourages this and your fellow drivers won't like it, but it's common practice in big fleets or a yard where empties are getting scarce. You can accomplish this just as easily (and a lot cheaper) by just putting one of the seals your company gives you on it. Some drivers will break a seal if they bang on the side and it sounds empty but most won't. I never did. You're not really supposed to claim them that way. It's supposed to be first come first serve and if you want it - hook up to it and deal with it. But in reality it happens all the time. If it's something legit like your trailer and you have to drop it to go into the shop, it's better to ask the shop for a red tag and tell them why. Usually they'll give you one.

The other is just a CYA thing for insurance if you drop the trailer and bobtail home and it does get stolen. That way they can report to insurance that the trailer was dropped but it was locked; to take an extra step to try and keep the insurance carrier from denying the claim due to our "negligence" in dropping it unsecured. In those cases, a kingpin lock does offer a better case that you did your part to secure the trailer. Folks use gladhand locks because kingpin locks get real greasy and fifth wheel grease is super hard to get out of cloth. If you really want to make your best case that you did your part, use both and get a good metal gladhand lock. They make them. If your company has a policy that you don't drop your trailer and you do it anyway and it gets stolen, it won't matter that you secured it. You'll still be in big trouble. Maybe not quite as much if you secured it but they'll still consider it a violation of policy. Your best bet to CYA if you have to drop to bobtail is CYA with a Qualcomm message to your DM and end it with: "That's OK?" Put the monkey on your DM's back. And if the DM says no, then press for what to do.

 

glad hand locks are available in varying designs and manufacture. I'd compare and buy the most well made and most rugged/sturdy in design.comparing them side by side allows the differences to come to light.basically,you get what you pay for.

if you decide to go with a pin lock,purchase one that has the flag hanging off of it so you remember that it is there.you can see that it is on the pin before you back under the trailer.

 

As far as the insurance company goes, if I ever had a trailer stolen my answer would be of course it was locked and secured. Regardless

 

The biggest use that I ever saw of glad hand locks, was at a dock where they send a dockster out to unhook your glad hand and lock it so you can't pull the trailer away from the dock until they are ready.

 

Don't waste your money on a quality glad hand lock. A thief is just gonna spin the glad hand off and spin a new one on. Might take him thirty seconds. All it takes is a crescent wrench. Same as a king pin lock. A real thief will have a V welded onto the front of his fifth wheel plate, jump the pin, and use his trolley brake to get it out of sight and then cut off the lock.

 

Trying looking at a shop like T/A or Petro right next to the Glad hand replacements!

 

The kingpin lock I'm thinking of wouldn't be that simple to defeat. Covers a pretty big piece of real estate and the locking mechanism is well covered. Still though, only keeps semi-honest people honest (the really honest ones wouldn't be messing with your equipment anyways) and the determined criminal will get the trailer one way or another. Basically you have to watch where you are parking and there are areas to avoid. The criminal element, while not the sharpest around, have a big advantage over most of us. I cannot really fathom the depths they will go to as I don't have the life experiences they are employing to try and rip me off. In a lot of ways, unless you go through this, you and I are naïve in the way the criminal element truly operates. The Soprano's is not a real good primer in criminal behavior.

 

Yeah, forgot about that one. They say it's about dock safety and making sure you didn't pull out before the load was done and the forklift driver drives off the dock and I believe it. Sometimes I wondered, though. Went to a food warehouse that used lumpers and they were a pricey service. Had signs all over about if you refuse to have your trailer glad hand locked no unload and if you removed one they'd call the cops. Got the distinct impression that one was more about holding the trailer hostage til they got their money for lumping the load. On the other end of the spectrum I went to a Michelin Tire plant with raw material once and after you docked they locked out your glad hand, had you put your truck key in a Plexiglas box with two locks on it, put the glad hand key in it too, then locked both locks and we both signed off on a paper on a clipboard certifying the "lockout" and you got one key, the forklift driver got the other and you HAD to wait in the driver lounge. I thought: man this is gonna take FOREVER. Shoot, they had me done in less than half an hour. I asked the guy about it and he said they had a forklift fatality from a premature pull off. Forklift went off the dock. Forklift driver was killed. He tried to jump and the forklift landed on him. Said Michelin went ballistic because all they had been doing was having the driver chock the wheels. Said the President of Michelin and an entourage came down and after looking at where it happened he told everyone: This will NEVER happen in any of my plants again. EVER. See to it.

Betcha a dollar it doesn't either. Not at that plant anyway. You ain't goin' nowhere til everyone is 200% positive it's all clear.

 

If they really wanted to be safe, they would install the dock locks. Of course those things can be a royal PITA! But by golly, if they have you locked to the dock, that trailer is not going to move.