Had a nightmare on Monday morning. on arriving at the yard at 0430 hitched up to trailer selected drive, tried to pull off. truck did not move, (span). jumped out of the truck and placed the dog clip on, I then carried out all my checks and everything was all good. I then drove off turning sharp right then sharp left…Bang trailer falls on its knee`s.
Absolutley gutted as now ive got to have a disiplinary and the thought of losing my job I dont bare thinking about. Hopefully i wont but Im a bit worried.
stevtel:
Had a nightmare on Monday morning. on arriving at the yard at 0430 hitched up to trailer selected drive, tried to pull off. truck did not move, (span). jumped out of the truck and placed the dog clip on, I then carried out all my checks and everything was all good. I then drove off turning sharp right then sharp left…Bang trailer falls on its knee`s.
Absolutley gutted as now ive got to have a disiplinary and the thought of losing my job I dont bare thinking about. Hopefully i wont but Im a bit worried.
Any advice?
Steve
Check the pin with a torch, at least until you get to recognise the sound when it has clicked in. I am surprised you could put the dogclip in correctly if you were not coupled correctly.
This seems to happen a lot. I can only come to 2 conclusions. You either:
A) Missed the pin and had it hooked over the front of the 5th wheel or
B) Had the pin resting within the jaws but above the the jaw it’s self.
You’re not the first and you won’t be the last ( my biggest fear )
Was any one hurt? No? Then put it down to experience. Just putting the dog clip in isn’t enough. A visual check to see that trailer is sitting in the correct position would be a good move.
Congratulations. Like the rest of us you are only human.
Chin up mate. You’ll be fine i’m sure.
MR VAIN:
This seems to happen a lot. I can only come to 2 conclusions. You either:
A) Missed the pin and had it hooked over the front of the 5th wheel or
B) Had the pin resting within the jaws but above the the jaw it’s self.
You’re not the first and you won’t be the last ( my biggest fear )
Was any one hurt? No? Then put it down to experience. Just putting the dog clip in isn’t enough. A visual check to see that trailer is sitting in the correct position would be a good move.
Congratulations. Like the rest of us you are only human.
Chin up mate. You’ll be fine i’m sure.
The annoying thing is No matter how many times I go over it in my head still dont know what went wrong…
nobody was hurt, trailer didnt go far however it took off my N/S light cluster pulled the nuts through the wheel arch so that had to be replaced and snapped the ABS lead so lucky really… just gutted at the min
Have they checked the JAWS and also the
play ,I have seen a fully closed coupling
with clip installed come apart not once
but three times all inside 4hrs, the unit
in question was being used for a exam
and i was one of those who had the misfortune
to among the three, the unit got a new
coupling when it returned to the firm it came from,
as some one posted looking with a torch as well as doing a tug is also well worth doing every time
Explain at your disiplinary that it is obviously a fault with the 5th wheel, probably a slack or worn horseshoe, If they take any action against you whatsoever talk to vosa.
If they ask you to drive the same unit again take it to a vosa testing station first.
in my view if that dog clip is in and the trailer has still dropped, sounds like it is a fifth wheel fault - but i maybe wrong, i always thought the dog clip is your insurance in case anything does happen so you dont get blamed?
ive dropped a trailer once but i was lucky - empty yard, empty trailer, running fork lift 10 RESULT!
I’ve seen a false double check pull-off done once by a trainee - he put it in reverse instead of a forward gear but THOUGHT he had a forward gear and it seemed to the trainee that it was a forward tug.
This may seem strange to us with more experience but I SAW this happen.
I’m wondering whether you may have done the same but in your case the plate was not fully locked in…
Generally, I find it amazing the amount of people who couple up to trailers without raising the air suspension of the unit as you go under to lift the trailer legs off the ground so you have perfect contact with the trailer and all the weight of the trailer and load on the fifth wheel so the pin couples sweet as a nut.
I drop the air till the fifth wheel is just under the trailer to save my mud guards and then stop and raise the sus on the unit all the way up so the legs arent touching the floor. Taking care not to skip the pin and ram the trailer into the rear of the cab. A chap on a day old new globetrotter at birds eye hams hall as he was changing the position of the fifth wheel put a big dent in the back of the cab cuz he went back to far, don’t know wether they made that his motor everyday from then on.
A trailer fell off the back of my unit once when I was dropping it about ten years ago whereby I jumped out the cab and the first thing I did was pull the pin (doh) The trailer promptly slid off the back of the unit and hit it’s knees resting a couple of inches away from the back fence and stretching my air lines, luckily the shunters were a good bunch and picked it up for me to wind the legs down without taking the ■■■■ too much. Have always triple checked legs are down and lines are off before pulling pin from then on!
i’d go to the disciplinary meeting and just say i can’t understand what went wrong. They’re unlikely to sack you a honest mistake but may do for bs.ing them
silver surfer is spot on…a false couple is ussually caused by a high trailer and lower 5th wheel,the edge of the jaws just catch the pin,closing it but the trailer is just sitting on top of the jaws.i’ve looked into this at least 5 times now.each time the damage has been fairly minimal,but the consequences can be horrendous.i know of one trailer that came off and demolished the security hut at an exit gate.luckily no one was in it.
as for pulling the pin-one of the worst incidents i’ve seen was when a driver pulled the pin before everything else and the trailer slid off and drop onto the wing-where his hand was resting on top of the wing…rough indeed.
Raising the suspension to get the legs clear also stops them from getting twisted when you pull forward to check the jaws are locked in, more so when it’s loaded. We’ve got plenty of trailers with twisted legs and the company sees it as an inconvenience rather than a defect. Not them in traffic or the workshop that’s got to wind the bloody things up and down though ;~(
I’ve had an instance where I coupled up as usual, I always lift the trailer with the suspension before reversing onto the pin. I tugged twice and it was fine but then when I went to put the clip on the handle wasn’t quite fully in so the holes weren’t inline so clip wouldn’t go in. Looking at the jaws as I always do during my pre-shift checks and after coupling up, they were only 3/4 of the way across the pin, it’d got jammed somehow I also couldn’t pull the handle back out to release it. I had to put the truck in 1st and give it a hell of a tug which released it, tried coupling up again and it hooked up fine.
Always check the dogclip and the jaws with a torch and then you know 100% that if anything does happen it’s not your fault.
wrecktech100:
as for pulling the pin-one of the worst incidents i’ve seen was when a driver pulled the pin before everything else and the trailer slid off and drop onto the wing-where his hand was resting on top of the wing…rough indeed.
I’ve seen a false double check pull-off done once by a trainee - he put it in reverse instead of a forward gear but THOUGHT he had a forward gear and it seemed to the trainee that it was a forward tug.
This may seem strange to us with more experience but I SAW this happen.
I’m wondering whether you may have done the same but in your case the plate was not fully locked in…
For this reason, I was taught always to select a forward gear which requires pushing the gear stick in the opposite direction to reverse - e.g. if reverse is in the top left, choose a forward gear by pushing the gearstick to the bottom. Means you can be absolutely sure that you really have got a forward gear.
I once had a trailer come off going down the road, had been coupled to the trailer for 5 weeks, very scary TBH, looking in your mirror to see your trailer on the other side of the road, luckily nothing coming the other way
Snapped all me airlines, off so trailer had to be recovered, trailer legs all bent as well. When the vehicle was inspected the jaws of the fifth wheel had broken up and this caused the trailer to come loose. Not a very nice incident. Has anyone else known this to happen?
The trailer promptly slid off the back of the unit and hit it’s knees resting a couple of inches away from the back fence and stretching my air lines, luckily the shunters were a good bunch and picked it up for me to wind the legs down without taking the ■■■■ too much. Have always triple checked legs are down and lines are off before pulling pin from then on!
