Can anybody help. I share a Mercedes Actross with 3 other drivers. It was slammed up the rear a couple of weeks ago and now the company is saying the damage is a missed pin event. The unit was pulling a close coupled fridge and was stationary when hit by a loaded 8 wheeler doing around 40mph. Trailer chassis is twisted and there is damage to the back of the cab. The drivers seat is busted and all the bolts fixing fifth wheel to chassis were bent. Company says no way has the trailer hit the cab in the accident so it is a missed pin event. We are having a disciplinary interview on Monday.
Tell them to prove it
If it was rammed by the jacksie, how did they miss the massive damage around the back doors?
Smash ya back doors in 
It’s a missed pin …but proving who did it out of 4 bloody drivers ■■? May be you guys do need to do a walkaround a bit more thoroughly…
Sounds like they were looking for an excuse to get rid of someone and the accident has provided an excuse. You also have the right to have a work colleague or a trade union rep with you. I strongly suggest you do that, they tend not to like doing disciplinaries with witnesses where the intent is to use some event as an excuse.
How bad is the damage to the cab? If there is some but its only minor then it is within reason to assume it happened as a direct result of the accident. If it is quite substantial then it is questionable if it was the accident that directly caused it because unless the fifth wheel sheered off it won’t impinge on the cab that much. Basically if there is a dent more than a few inches deep they may have a case as a few inches would account for the fifth wheel bolt stretch plus cab rocking. Fifth wheel bolts can stretch up to 2-3" before snapping given what I’ve seen in the past so if the fridge motor cover was 6 inches from the back of the cab, a slight denting would be expected.
Secondly was the fifth wheel safety dog clip in? If so then it can’t be a missed pin event. If they don’t provide photographic evidence of it not being they cannot do anything as they cannot prove it wasn’t correctly connected.
Finally were you even in charge of the vehicle given you say it was driven by 2 others as well? If you weren’t then there’s no case to answer even if you had hooked it up. The fact you hooked up the trailer before the driver who did have it at the time is irrelevant - the driver in charge at the time should have performed their own walk round checks, including checking the fifth wheel pin, at the start of their duty. If they just jumped in the cab assuming all was OK then that’s their problem. Consequently if you were in charge of the vehicle at the time and you didn’t check, just jumping in the motor and assuming all was OK and it was a missed pin event, you are in trouble as it was your responsibility to check.
cliffstephens:
It’s a missed pin …but proving who did it out of 4 bloody drivers ■■? May be you guys do need to do a walkaround a bit more thoroughly…
+1
Proof is needed, and if no one wrote a defect on a daily walk around then it must have happened in the crash ! That is their problem, so take your Union rep with you .
Or if you really did miss the pin own up honesty is the best policy 
Someone will grass you up if they saw you do it!! 
Management talking out of their anuses again. Ye gods they are thick, they would rather pay for the damage themselves than reclaim it from the third party insurers. You say that the impact was severe enough to break the driver’s seat in the collision, this means that there was whiplash from the rear end impact, therefore the cab will have suffered the same forces, meaning that it is likely to have come into contact with the trailer and then settled back into its normal position.
Of course if they have got you on camera missing the pin, then things are different, but the following will still apply.
So most definitely have a union rep or colleague of your choice attend to support you and take notes of the proceedings or even tape record what is said. This is your legal right.
Do they have cctv of who did it ? If not , tell them to jog on and do one.
If it is many drivers , that indicates that they don’t know who it is and are hoping somebody will admit it.
As said , take a dictaphone to record the interview.
Spineless managers .
If yor saying it was shunted …trailers never go forward on the pin unless it was smashed over the pin then it would have taken the cab off…
Am i missing something in the ops post,surely if his outfit has been rammed up the jacksie by a loaded 8 wheeler there is going to be considerable damage from back to front and also to the 8 wheeler,which would surely result in insurance being involved,so how can the company try and blame the damage on a missed pin event ?
rj_gibson2003:
Can anybody help. I share a Mercedes Actross with 3 other drivers. It was slammed up the rear a couple of weeks ago and now the company is saying the damage is a missed pin event. The unit was pulling a close coupled fridge and was stationary when hit by a loaded 8 wheeler doing around 40mph. Trailer chassis is twisted and there is damage to the back of the cab. The drivers seat is busted and all the bolts fixing fifth wheel to chassis were bent. Company says no way has the trailer hit the cab in the accident so it is a missed pin event. We are having a disciplinary interview on Monday.
Does not seem to be the full story here .
Was anyone in it at time of accident ?.
40 MPH , or even close to it , by a loaded 8 wheeler is likely to have been pretty substantial . Was anyone hurt ?. Are there any witnesses?. Was it reported ?.
Was outfit recovered , after the incident ?. Was it driven away .?
Has it been used since ? Was it inspected / assessed ? .
All these questions & more need to be asked & answered .
Struggling with this one a bit, to be honest. Do you know if the company got the unit checked over after what seems to have been a very heavy collision ? Did you or any of the other 3 drivers who have been driving the unit since the collision have any cause for concern about the condition of the unit ? Walk round checks would probably not pick out a twisted chassis ( though driving it probably would ), you could also miss stretched 5th wheel mounting bolts in my opinion. I think you and you mates would notice damage to the back of the cab. Did any of you see the unit straight after the accident and see the damage to the back of the cab ? I seems to me, given the severity of the impact, reasonable for a driver to assume the damage to the cab was caused by the crash and not to defect it, unless it caused a safety issue. Are the firm saying " yes,we inspected the unit,we know about twisted chassis,we know about the stretched bolts but we found no damage to the rear of the cab, but after a couple weeks we have seen the damage to the back of the cab, so one of you 4 drivers must have missed the pin " ?
I can’t think you have much to worry about, except you are either working for a company who doesn’t think it important to get a vehicle examined after a major impact, or worse still one who sends out a unit with a twisted chassis an severely deformed 5th wheel mounting bolts
As others have said, at the hearing take some one with you,ask the right questions, make notes and stay calm. Best of luck.
Regards. John.
on my walk round check,i would have noted the damaged cab,and wrote out a defect note.
3 wheeler:
Proof is needed, and if no one wrote a defect on a daily walk around then it must have happened in the crash ! That is their problem, so take your Union rep with you .
is a ding in the back of the cab really what a defect book is for ?
chester1:
3 wheeler:
Proof is needed, and if no one wrote a defect on a daily walk around then it must have happened in the crash ! That is their problem, so take your Union rep with you .is a ding in the back of the cab really what a defect book is for ?
lol 
mismanagement talking pish and BS 
take a rep/ workmate as a WITNESS as they’ll try putting WORDS INTO YOUR Mouth 
chester1:
3 wheeler:
Proof is needed, and if no one wrote a defect on a daily walk around then it must have happened in the crash ! That is their problem, so take your Union rep with you .is a ding in the back of the cab really what a defect book is for ?
Tis when you want to cover your ■■■ mate
tango boy:
chester1:
3 wheeler:
Proof is needed, and if no one wrote a defect on a daily walk around then it must have happened in the crash ! That is their problem, so take your Union rep with you .is a ding in the back of the cab really what a defect book is for ?
Tis when you want to cover your ■■■ mate
+1