Feeder driver fired for refusing unsafe trailer?

8

804 Update

Guest
The latest news can be found on the 804 Members United website where there's a story on this incident. There's another article that spells out our legal right to refuse to operate unsafe vehicles.
 

trickpony1

Well-Known Member
Yeah, interesting... what kinda problems?

probably important stuff like:
-did he brush his teeth?
-are his shoes polished and laced correctly?
-are his clothes clean and pressed?
....and anything else they can nit pick just for the sheer thrill of retaliation.
 
How on earth would the driver know there were cracks in the break pads? Wouldn't you have to take the tire off to be able to see that? Just seems kinda odd to me.

One way would be for the cracks to be visible from the side of the pad. We tag MTs from the rail yard this way from time to time.
 
How on earth would the driver know there were cracks in the break pads? Wouldn't you have to take the tire off to be able to see that? Just seems kinda odd to me.

While working as a shifter, there were a couple feeder drivers who were notorious for finding things wrong with their trailer at the last possible second (causing a yard delay AKA more OT). They would get there at start time, do their pre-trip, go socialize, then wait until pull-time to casually find a mechanic to fix that broken marker light and leave 30 minutes late.

Not saying that's what happened with this guy, but it's within the realm of possibility.

In this post you ask 2 questions that really scare me and leave me with two questions for you. You state that you are a shifter( I would ponder you move trailers in your yard) Do you do a pretrip on your trailer and do you have a commercial A (tractor trailer license)? I you are a shifter and dont pretrip your equiptment, plase tell me what building you work out of so incase I am in the area, i will stay far away from the shifter cab when you guys come my way. Checking the brake pads for cracks and thickness is part of the pretrip and part of our NYS commercial driving written test and road test infront of a NYS inspector. We are then trained by UPS to check for the same following things under our UPS directed pretrip. During our state test, we have to visually inspect the pads and state to the instrucor what is NOT wrong with the item. (example) the rim is in good condition,is not cracked and there is no weld spots on the rim. The brake pads are proper thickness and they are not damaged or cracked.I would hope that you know what you are inspection before you drive that shifter and make sure you know what you are signing when you fill out your ddr. So to answer your question NO, you do not have to take off the tire to see that the brake pads are cracked. I would ask to get re pita certified if I were you because it seems like they left out the pretrip training part of it.
 

Hangingon

Well-Known Member
As I understand it here, the 22.3 shifters are not licensed so can only drive on the lot. The ones I've talked to have been told not to worry about pretripping the shifters since they don't go on road and the mechanics look at them every few days.
 
In this post you ask 2 questions that really scare me and leave me with two questions for you. You state that you are a shifter( I would ponder you move trailers in your yard) Do you do a pretrip on your trailer and do you have a commercial A (tractor trailer license)? I you are a shifter and dont pretrip your equiptment, plase tell me what building you work out of so incase I am in the area, i will stay far away from the shifter cab when you guys come my way. Checking the brake pads for cracks and thickness is part of the pretrip and part of our NYS commercial driving written test and road test infront of a NYS inspector. We are then trained by UPS to check for the same following things under our UPS directed pretrip. During our state test, we have to visually inspect the pads and state to the instrucor what is NOT wrong with the item. (example) the rim is in good condition,is not cracked and there is no weld spots on the rim. The brake pads are proper thickness and they are not damaged or cracked.I would hope that you know what you are inspection before you drive that shifter and make sure you know what you are signing when you fill out your ddr. So to answer your question NO, you do not have to take off the tire to see that the brake pads are cracked. I would ask to get re pita certified if I were you because it seems like they left out the pretrip training part of it.

I don't work for UPS anymore, but I was a shifter for about 5 years. Never had a CDL and never needed one to be a shifter. The only equipment I had to pretrip was the yardhorse. As a matter of fact, when I was a shifter (this was about 10 years ago), we broke all kinds of rules as directed by management. Never wore a seatbelt because it slows you down (jumping in and out of the yardhorse). Only used the red line because hooking up the yellow line and lights took too long. Those were only a couple of shortcuts that we took on a daily basis. I'm pretty sure that's all changed by now though.

Regarding the brake pads - I was just unaware that you could view the entire brake pad without having to take off the tire. When I look at the disc brakes on my car, I can only see a small part of the brake pad, the rest is covered by the caliper. I am guessing that drum brakes allow you to see the entire brake pad or maybe just a cross section so that cracks can be easily spotted?
 

drewed

Shankman
Every piece of equipment used no matter if GSE checks it constanstly needs to be pre-post tripped by the operator period.
Its CYA if you dont and something goes wrong then its on you.
Its also an audit item so Id hope your management would be more diligent about it.
 

tieguy

Banned
As I understand it here, the 22.3 shifters are not licensed so can only drive on the lot. The ones I've talked to have been told not to worry about pretripping the shifters since they don't go on road and the mechanics look at them every few days.

All yard shifters need to be pretripped every day. PITO requirement. If you have any irreg tugs they also have to be pretripped every day.
 
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