Empty Trailer Had Damaged Freight In It

You should always get up and inside of any new empty trailer you are grabbing. With a good flashlight, check for holes, integrity, cleanliness, general condition, and trash. What a waste of time and money it would be to pick up a supposedly good empty, drive 250 miles deadhead to a food-grade shipper , only to discover that your “ready-to-load” new empty has a forklift puncture in the roof? The shipper will reject it, after you waited 3 hours to get a dock assignment. Now, you’re low on hours, can’t perform this assignment, and you get to inform dispatch of your poor decision? That is NOT going to be this guy! It’s much smarter and so easy to take 10 minutes to check out any empty you are hooking up to.

That the approach plate isnt missing causing the trailer to be leaning on your drives.

Bird, that's a mess!

I'm hoping you learned a lesson from that experience. Always stop and G.O.A.L. each time you back under a trailer. Just get a little way under it then stop, Get Out And Look at everything before you bump it up to the king pin. That's just standard procedure for a professional. I know we all get ourselves in a hurry, but that's also when we usually screw something up.

Sometimes you just never know what you're gonna find out here. Had you caused damage you'd have a preventable accident on your record.

I agree with you Old School. To be honest i showed my inexperience here. Not that to be a excuse i know. Sometimes lessons are learned hard at our own expense. This is one i wont forget. The yard i go too usually has a enough room where i can drop my mt next to my load. So I'll unhook, pre trip that trailer, throw in an extra load bar if I have any unhook from the trailer than hook to the load, and finish the pre trip. Not that you needed to know all of that but said that because i do take pride in my pre trip. I just completely overlooked it. Because the one step i did have until this happened was like you said, stopping half way under it. I only did that if i needed to lower it but now that will be evertime. I do agree 100 percent its standard for a professional driver. A standard some drivers i see have all but forgotten.

That the approach plate isnt missing causing the trailer to be leaning on your drives.

Bird, that's a mess!

I'm hoping you learned a lesson from that experience. Always stop and G.O.A.L. each time you back under a trailer. Just get a little way under it then stop, Get Out And Look at everything before you bump it up to the king pin. That's just standard procedure for a professional. I know we all get ourselves in a hurry, but that's also when we usually screw something up.

Sometimes you just never know what you're gonna find out here. Had you caused damage you'd have a preventable accident on your record.

It's really easy to check our trailers to see if they are mt.

If I'm picking up food I always get in trailer to sweep out, and look around then..of course I expensed the push broom, $21 At loves..

Okay, Danielsahn, game on. Softball tournament between flatbedders and box haulers. Winning team gets bragging rights for a year.

Okay, Danielsahn, game on. Softball tournament between flatbedders and box haulers. Winning team gets bragging rights for a year.

GAME ON!

I pull in front of the empty row and go do a pretrip and inspect before backing under and connecting to a trailer. Somtimes you have to go thru a row to find a good trailer.

Okay, Danielsahn, game on. Softball tournament between flatbedders and box haulers. Winning team gets bragging rights for a year.

GAME ON!

I want in! I’ll throw in with the flatbedders.

Backed under a shiny new Prime trailer. One of the 20 ones (Primates know what I'm talking about). Checked tires, lights and all that fun stuff. Then it occured to me that I better check to see if it was clean because I was fixing to pickup a meat load. Wouldn't ya know it, 10 or so empty pallets and a bunch of debris.

Notified dispatch that it was full of crap. Then with my tail tucked I decoupled and found an old 14 that took 45 minutes to air up because it had sat so long.

Leason learned here, check it out before hand.

Wouldn’t it have been quicker to just toss out the pallets and sweep out the debris?