Always Check, Before Pulling It Out

Yesterday I was at one of our terminals, they handed me my paper work for both trailers after dropping my dolly in front of the rear trailer, I drove to the otherside of the yard to the dock door my trailer is in. As I backed up to hook it in the door I noticed the safety chain wasn't across the door so I walked back as i always do and they still had the door open and freight halfway in and half on the dock plate, on a trailer that was supposedly "closed" and ready to be pulled.

Had I not checked like we are supposed to do, freight probably would have hit the ground and I would probably be unemployed.

So before you pull it out make sure, everything is tucked in where it belongs and nobody is still working in it.

Nice man. Yeah that's stressed pretty hard at our terminal. It has happened before but there wasn't freight on the plate but the dock worker was on the forklift inside the trailer when he pulled out. Went for a ride for a few feet.

Yikes that wouldn't have been good for anyone! We have a policy of needing paperwork in hand before pulling out. Of course some guys see the green light and grab paperwork on their way out the gate.

The way our system is setup is the loader must scan every pallet. They can't mark it ready unless everything is scanned or a supervisor overrides it. Somebody in the office then tags it as ready which sends us an automated text and allows us to print the paperwork. Then we're allowed to go out and pull it from the door. The whole process takes on average 5 minutes but I still visually check i have a green light, the dock plate isn't in, and the overhead door is closed before I pull out. The extra steps really don't take much time in comparison to somebody missing an extended amount of time due to an injury that could have been easily avoided. You never know when they may think they goofed up or forgot a pallet and they try skip a step or 2 trying to get that last pallet on before anyone notices. At my first warehouse job I witnessed the aftermath of a forklift driver having the truck pull away on him. He ended up with a busted leg and back injury which could have been much worse. It's easy to fall into the mindset of skipping steps and taking shortcuts due to it being x months or years you've done it with no issue but trucking always seems to throw a curveball when you least expect it. Great job Bobcat!

I had a load a few months ago delivering a load if water to a grocery store, like a BJs or something similar. They had a dock with 3 bays. Each bay had a Cowen trailer. He tells me I'll have to move one of their trailers if I want to be unloaded before 5pm. It was 9am. I was uncomfortable moving someone else's trailer but we agreed I wouldnt be held liable if anything happened to it. He tells me take dock 2, it's the only empty trailer. I was in New Jersey I think and things were done through the door. He gave me the key to the kingpin lock so I hooked up and moved it where he told me to. After I went back and backed into the dock I was sure to ask him if he was aware there was 3 pallet Jack's and a couple stacks of empty pallets in it. Lol...he did not. At least there were no humans in it.