daffyd:
I get why you’d get out to look before hooking in to the trailer but why connect the lines before hooking in to the trailer?
Just down to access mate, fridge trailers especially
Yup. On our long fridges you can just about get to the lines without split coupling, but you get covered in grease, so I always split couple.
Don’t understand the aversion to using trailer brakes so many drivers have, I can only assume it comes from trying to keep shunters happy. It takes seconds to walk round to pull the button out and ensure safety. Never understood why trailer brake buttons aren’t on the headboard.
daffyd:
I get why you’d get out to look before hooking in to the trailer but why connect the lines before hooking in to the trailer?
Just down to access mate, fridge trailers especially
Yup. On our long fridges you can just about get to the lines without split coupling, but you get covered in grease, so I always split couple.
Don’t understand the aversion to using trailer brakes so many drivers have, I can only assume it comes from trying to keep shunters happy. It takes seconds to walk round to pull the button out and ensure safety. Never understood why trailer brake buttons aren’t on the headboard.
F… the Shunters
UK Mail just bought a load of new Cartwrights, all have the button on the front,
Which is handy, as some of the old trailers had buttons you had to hunt for,
which is not a lot of fun when its persisting down with rain,
But hey - rather get a bit wet than crushed !!!
This is on a Renault premium
When the handbrake is on you can push it even further back and the brakes/tanks? make a whooshing noise, what (if anything) is happening here
Releasing the trailer brake?
This is on a Renault premium
When the handbrake is on you can push it even further back and the brakes/tanks? make a whooshing noise, what (if anything) is happening here
Releasing the trailer brake?
Shunter at our place report you if you don’t use trailer brakes
Also management do spot checks on the yard
Had roller ways in the past driver hurt two units smashed up
This is on a Renault premium
When the handbrake is on you can push it even further back and the brakes/tanks? make a whooshing noise, what (if anything) is happening here
Releasing the trailer brake?
Testing the spring brakes
ahh, thinking about it, it’s the same noise as when you connect/disconnect the red line
when/how would you use it? does it release the unit handbrake?
I had a close one in Honda Swindon in a few years back. I’d just pulled onto a bay and opened the door to get out as the wagon on my offside started to move off the bay next to me. Rather than fully opening my door and getting out I just pulled the door closed again to give him plenty of room to get out. As his trailer started to go past me I noticed that he was turning left and getting really close to my mirror but there was nothing I could do, the wagon just kept turning left and crushed the offside of my unit just where I would have been if i’d carried on getting out.
It turned out that the driver had forgotten to put his unit brake on when he coupled up then had gone into the warehouse and released the dock lock and watched his trailer and wagon roll away through the window in the bay door.
He was marched off site never to come back.
Where I work has 2 trucks and 5 trailers. We never apply the manual park brake. Not saying I’m right or wrong, but here’s why.
When you disconnect the red suzie, it activates the service brakes on the trailer ie, the same as pressing the foot brake in the truck. If say you have an air leak on the trailer, when the air pressure drops, the spring part of the chamber takes over to keep the brakes on. In modern trailers, they can’t roll away.
Also, I will never have a roll away because a couple of years ago, instead of connecting the red suzie first when coupling up, I changed to ALWAYS starting with the yellow one.
If there is no pressure when connecting it, the handbrake is off in the truck. If there is pressure then it applies the foot brake on the trailer, thus holding it when connecting the rest of the lines.
A roll away is then impossible.
As I say I know it’s not technically correct, and I also don’t see any harm in putting on the manual park brake, but for me it’s a pointless exercise.
It’s like putting 2 padlocks on a shed door when it’s already locked with just the 1
I don’t quite follow are you talking about a unit that has a trailer brake lever in the cab such as a scania in order for the yellow line to have air pressure ?
Dan Punchard:
I don’t quite follow are you talking about a unit that has a trailer brake lever in the cab such as a scania in order for the yellow line to have air pressure ?
Don’t Volvo’s have a seperate brake for the trailer, but they’re about the only ones?
No, all modern trucks put air out the yellow line when the handbrake is on in the truck.
The exception up to lately used to be Volvo and scania but from about 07 on, they both do it as well.
So effectively what happens when you pull the handbrake in the truck is, it applies the spring brakes in the lorry and the air brakes in the trailer.
Whenever I couple to a loaded trailer I always put the yellow line on first, most modern tractor units will park the trailer on the service line (not Scania). You don’t get the sense of the heavy trailer being braked by one axle on the unit, when the red line releases them. If the trailer brake has been applied, no problem unless the springs are weak or broken . The secondary position on the unit hand brake (pressed in and further down) releases the trailer brakes only and allows you to ‘feel’ the trailer push the unit to confirm the trailer brakes are operating.
I’m in Ireland, and im not sure if this was the case with you in the uk, but up to about 5 years ago over here, both our air suzies had taps on them, not the automatic type we have now.
I preferred them because I could put on the lines, turn on the yellow tap first and hear the air going through. I then knew I was golden to turn on the red one.
Both our trucks are scanias, 07 and 2013 and both apply the trailer brakes on the handbrake.
so pushing the handbrake right back is stopping air being being pushed through the yellow line and pushing air through the red line to the trailer, but the unit brakes stay on as if the handbrake was on normally?
Dan Punchard:
I’ll write that down in the wall of my cave then !
As Dan says,
we’ll all now keep a book in our driver’s bags listing each make, model & variant, which do what, which country has taps, what firms leave them off, Oh., And we’ll all go on a fitters course too!!
FFS, Always put the brake on, Always check it’s on before coupling, … SIMPLES
At the end of the day,if you were to sit your class 1 test tomorrow and NOT apply the trailer brake before uncoupling or check it was on before going under the trailer you would fail your test instantly. Evn with no minors and 100 out of 100 for theory test.
So anyone who says “you dont need trailer brakes” needs to go for a refresher on artic driving imho.
The-Snowman:
At the end of the day,if you were to sit your class 1 test tomorrow and NOT apply the trailer brake before uncoupling or check it was on before going under the trailer you would fail your test instantly. Evn with no minors and 100 out of 100 for theory test.
So anyone who says “you dont need trailer brakes” needs to go for a refresher on artic driving imho.
Or A Change of Job might be safer for the rest of us !!!
Too many drivers in this thread seem to be under the potentially dangerous illusion that the red button is popped out once the red air line is disconnected on all new trailers.
From my (admittedly limited) personal experience, having auto brakes is a luxury. Only ever seen it at Stobarts. At my gaff we have hundreds of new trailers and they all have manual brakes.
. The secondary position on the unit hand brake (pressed in and further down) releases the trailer brakes only and allows you to ‘feel’ the trailer push the unit to confirm the trailer brakes are operating.