That's the tree hungers for ya. I agree with you. I'm not sticking my head between that skirt and the tires. Lucky I can reach my arm in there to tug the air cord.
I take my pre-trip seriously. Most drivers don't do as much as I do. But I do everything the DOT rulebook says, and more stuff I've learned to do out of necessity. Through my experience and advice I've received from elders, I've learned things can get complicated real fast.
A few examples:
In my first year, I visually inspected the air chambers on a trailer, and they were fine. What I didn't see, was a crack on the bracket holding one of the chambers onto the axle. When I was post-tripping upon my arrival at the destination hub, I saw one of those brake chambers was barely hanging onto the axle. I wrote it up, and went to the shop to ask the mechanic about it. I asked him what could happen if that chamber fell off. He laughed, and said, "How do you like driving with locked up brakes?" From that point on, I always give all of the brake chambers-including the smaller ones on the dolly-a good tap with my sledgehammer. And the only way you can do that is by reaching or crawling under there. Same thing with the leaf springs.
We had a driver get written up because he brought a trailer to a meet, and the other driver, while pre-tripping, noticed the steel bracket holding the on air tank had a big crack in it. That driver refused to take the trailer--rightly so--and the trailer had to be off-loaded to another trailer. The first driver was written up for not seeing the crack in his pre-trip. End result? I also look and give the brackets a good tap with my hammer.
Another driver was pre-tripping a dolly and he noticed the U brackets holding the springs to the axle were missing several nuts holding the U brackets in place. If those brackets would have come loose, it would have been a major problem for that driver. I now look at that too.
I used to have an old 264XXX Mack tractor, and while pre-tripping it, I noticed one of the shocks on the drive axle was only connected at the top. It was hanging straight down. At some point, the bolt holding the shock to the frame on the bottom came off. End result? I had to get another tractor, and now I give all of the shocks a good tap with my hammer.
I was being given a hard time from an on-road sup about the time it took (takes) me to pre-trip one night, and while I was bending under the axles of my twin screw to check the inside of the wheels for any problems, he told me that I didn't need to check there. I insisted I did. He kind of bristled, but I kept doing it. Not two or three weeks later, while doing this, I noticed hub oil leaking from one of the wheels. I would have never noticed that if I didn't get down there and check. I had to get another tractor, and the mechanics told me it was a good thing I noticed it on-property instead of on the road, because it likely would have resulted in a hub/axle failure. I wouldn't want to know how that might have ended.
Another driver, in a different hub was written up for not noticing that the A-frame assembly that attaches to the legs of the trailer had a large crack that made the legs wobbly. That should have pretty easy to spot, but few drivers check that. I make a point of it.
One other thing a LOT of drivers fail to check are the air lines connecting the dolly to the front box, especially that red hose. If that red hose blow, all of the wheels behind that point stop spinning. It drives me nuts how many dollies I get have pinched hoses. It drives me nuts because this can almost always be avoided by tucking the hoses away when you are backing the front box to the dolly or when you are done using the dolly, but mostly because--again--the lazy driver fails to red tag a pinched hose. Even though I make a lot of money on breakdown time, it bugs me drivers can't be bothered by taking a little extra time doing the job right.
By the way, I said I used to get a lot of flack for how long it takes me to pre-trip. I should mention it doesn't take me that long to do my pre-trip. Pre-tripping trailers varies quite a bit due to all of the extra factors involved, like waiting on doors, not having a seal in the trailer, or the load not being secured with a strap or load bar or traffic in the yard. All of this goes against your leave time, and can flag you as leaving late, but is usually beyond my control. But almost without failure, it takes me about 15 minutes from my start time to when I get the tractor moving. According to UPS, this is 5 to 6 minutes too long. But interestingly, every on-road sup says I have a spot-on routine, when they walk with me.
The new trailers have caused some friction between me and the sups because the set-up prevents me from doing what I need to do, and when I bring it up, they don't have an answer for me. I know those new skirts are required in some states, and they are moving to make them fleet wide for fuel efficiency, but the fact is, they make a proper inspection hard, if not impossible. And while these trailers are new, and aren't likely to run into problems for a while, they won't stay young forever. Then what?
One last thing about the new trailers: one of the most important things we check when hooking up, is checking that the ring or lock is engaged around the pin of the trailer at the fifth wheel. Those skirts make that nearly impossible to check, especially if you drive a twin screw. The only way to check it now is to hook up your tractor at an angle where the mouth of the fifth wheel faces out towards the side of the trailer. Most of us haven't learned that yet, because it goes against everything we've ever done or been taught before.
But I'm rambling. The point I'm making about a good pre-trip is that my examples are things you may ever experience. They are rare. But stuff happens. The way you notice them, before they cause you problems, is by doing a thorough check and make it part of your daily routine, in all conditions. It doesn't take much longer than any other pre-trip, and I can do it in my sleep. But that's why I'm the guy doing things a lot of drivers don't do, or think to.
