Frankydobo:
I think some misunderstood me, I didn’t say don’t get out of the cab to check, what I was getting at was the bloke dropping a trailer has as much responsibility to do it right as the bloke picking it up, in other words have a thought for whoever might connect to the trailer after you. In the old steel suspension days you would have been told in no uncertain manner if you had dropped a trailer too high so the next guy had to wind down the legs on a fully loaded trailer to hook up.
Today with air the job should be easier and it shouldn’t matter if the suspension drops slightly over time, the amount of lift and lower on air should cater for it and surely the driver when coming to collect the trailer should see any height difference anyway! Don’t know what all that claptrap was about grease being pushed onto the catwalk and damaging the wings, I didn’t do that with steel suspension so hardly likely to do it with air if done as I described, which was the same as others have said. Obviously its a different game today where blokes don’t give a monkeys about each other and are only too quick to run to the office and tell tales!
Agree with you, its normal courtesy to drop the trailer sensibly, on as reasonable ground as possible and at a height that takes into account the height of the tractor being used to drop the thing.
You’re right too in that the job is infested by those who take no pride in their work…whilst amusingly describing themselves as professional drivers.
However seeing as so many who now do the job are not up to the mark, the driver picking the trailer up must assume that a blithering idiot has dropped it, much the same as a sensible driver assumes every other road user is an idiot.
I wouldn’t mind if picking a trailer up was difficult, its not but it needs a bit of effort and care, just as dropping a trailer needs a bit of care and forethought.
One can only hope that costs incurred by idiots will eventually weed them out from the job, won’t be holding me breath mind.
All we can do is make sure we cover our own arses and follow the sensible routines mentioned here by some of our proper drivers, that way WE don’t overshoot the pin or drop the things on their knees miles away at speed, if others want to do it the lazy couldn’t give a toss method let 'em, so long as the lorry owner is daft enough to keep paying for the damage and do nothing about the problem they’ll carry on doing it.
anyway he hit something, he did not stop to see what he hit but it caused a lot of damage to the n/s of a trailer. The alloy was bashed in which caused instant tyre failure, side impact bar bashed in, mudguard cracked, 3 curtain buckles rip off.
