[ATeam]

Originally Posted by greg334

Yea.... what he said...... maybe a bit of hands on experience?

Yes, but not my hands. Yet another case where one can learn from the mistakes of others instead of his own.

[greg334]

Originally Posted by ATeam

Yes, but not my hands. Yet another case where one can learn from the mistakes of others instead of his own.

Well that's good.... it always good to learn from others.

[P51bombay]

Originally Posted by ATeam

Yes, but not my hands. Yet another case where one can learn from the mistakes of others instead of his own.

DO tell the story behind this one.

[ATeam]

Not much to tell. Early in our career, someone, I do not recall who, told me of a driver who did not raise the landing gear before leaving the dock. Oops!

Raising the landing gear seemed like a good idea even to a newbie like me, and even before I heard the story, but that story and others led us to develop a walk-around protocol.

After most every stop (fuel, deliveries, store parking lots, rest areas, etc.), we do a walk-around to make sure the truck is clear before moving it. This is in addition to walk-arounds done during pre-trip inspections.

A walk-around has saved us from a loss or mishap a few times, including one time when I discovered in the morning that some joker had half-lowered our landing gear as we slept. On walk-arounds we have discovered shopping carts that have wind-blown under the truck, debris in a tire, a roll of paper towels accidently left sitting on the deck extension, a tire that had gone flat sometime during the day, and a padlock not on the door where it should be but accidently left dangling from the grab handle.

[P51bombay]

Interesting stuff, although I must admit that when I asked - for some reason I was thinking along the lines of: fork truck enters box - LG not down, fork truck and big truck fall down, although that doesn't seem very likely.

That walk around would have caught a left open roll up door I will admit to forgetting on a couple of occasions - Most have probably done that at one time or another. This was when I got a bit lax about locking said door with the lock left in the location you mentioned. With the truck backed up to my bedroom window at night and being nearly always near by during the day............easy to get lazy and I am lucky nothing fell out. Though the truck was empty both times, the pallet jack has one of those Pallet Truck Stop...Cherry's 800 350-0011 under it (which everyone should have) there was a box near the door I keep a shrink wrapper and infrequently used straps, tape, etc but it stayed put for the 10ish miles down the interstate.

Then one day heading into Canada I got asked if I had looked in back, was it locked? - of course I had a PP excuse for both which was followed by a final question. "How do you know someone didn't put something in there?" Point taken, door is now locked at all times, even driving from one side of the street to the other - the side benefit to that is the door never gets left open since a key is needed to lock it and with the cab locked - I can't get in without retrieving the key from the lock.


On your tire incident.........that's another case were a GPS will help you, in most cases it will located nearby businesses, at least tomtom's will.

[MSinger]

Originally Posted by P51bombay

Interesting stuff, although I must admit that when I asked - for some reason I was thinking along the lines of: fork truck enters box - LG not down, fork truck and big truck fall down, although that doesn't seem very likely.

That walk around would have caught a left open roll up door I will admit to forgetting on a couple of occasions - Most have probably done that at one time or another. This was when I got a bit lax about locking said door with the lock left in the location you mentioned. With the truck backed up to my bedroom window at night and being nearly always near by during the day............easy to get lazy and I am lucky nothing fell out. Though the truck was empty both times, the pallet jack has one of those Pallet Truck Stop...Cherry's 800 350-0011 under it (which everyone should have) there was a box near the door I keep a shrink wrapper and infrequently used straps, tape, etc but it stayed put for the 10ish miles down the interstate.

Then one day heading into Canada I got asked if I had looked in back, was it locked? - of course I had a PP excuse for both which was followed by a final question. "How do you know someone didn't put something in there?" Point taken, door is now locked at all times, even driving from one side of the street to the other - the side benefit to that is the door never gets left open since a key is needed to lock it and with the cab locked - I can't get in without retrieving the key from the lock.


On your tire incident.........that's another case were a GPS will help you, in most cases it will located nearby businesses, at least tomtom's will.

Thanks for the tip on the Pallet Truck Stop. I had never seen this device before. If I ever make it back on the road I will definitely invest in one of those. Sure beats load locking the thing in everytime.

[RLENT]

Originally Posted by P51bombay

for some reason I was thinking along the lines of: fork truck enters box - LG not down, fork truck and big truck fall down, although that doesn't seem very likely.

Yeah .... well not likely ....... but ......

Back in Jan or Feb I was up at American Accoustic south of BeanTown picking up a load and while I was waiting for them to load me I was talking to guy from some expedite company (don't recall who) whose straight truck was in the dock and being loaded. His co-driver was in the sleeper catching some Zzzz's ..... the guy I was talking to had been sleeping waiting for the place to open so he could get loaded ..... so he was a little dazed and confused.

So we're standing there yackin' and the forklift driver enters the box with another set of whatever he was loading (musta been heavy) and all of sudden: KERPOW !!!!!

Sounded like someone had pulled the string on a howitzer .... the dude had failed to drop his L/G when he docked and it blew one of the left side rears. Scared the bejeezus out of his co-driver. Moral of story:

Big Truck + Fork Lift with heavy load = fall down .... and go boom.

The really funny part is the guy sez "I guess I better go put the landing gear down ..." (hmmm ...... ya think ? )

So he goes and sets it so the f/l driver can finish loading him ...... but for the left side only (the side with the tire that had blow) and comes back in.

Me, being the ever-helpful soul that I am, ask him "Whaddya think - maybe put the gear down on the passenger side as well ?"

He looks at me for sec ..... and says "Yeah .... probably better ...." (.... do ya really think so ? )

Too funny .... even for dumb ol' cargo van driver like me.

[cheri1122]

I heard a very similar KERPOW! just yesterday, while getting loaded in Greenville, SC. It wasn't a tire, (I'd put the landing gear down), and it wasn't an airbag, (I'd emptied them before loading) - it was the rear wheels of the pallet jack, going through the floor, sigh. I can't imagine what they were thinking, trying to move an 11,000 lb skid with a pallet jack, after having loaded it with a forklift, but it was clearly too much weight for the small surface area of the rear wheels to support. Ya think?!

[Broompilot]

Here is a good one:

Driver pulls into Consignee, one back door missing the other one barley hooked.

Driver picked up load day before and never noticed that both doors were not latched. So where do ya think that other door went? Talk about IGNORING a PTI and how he ever made it from PU to Delivery?

[ATeam]

Thats a new point in favor of a rollup (overhead) door. You might forget to close it, but at least you will still have it when you realize the mistake.