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DO NOT Pull Away From the Dock
allen griggs
Member Posts: 35,222 ✭✭✭✭
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Doesn't the loading dock have an under locking arm on it?
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
And yes, there IS a system (one brand is DockLock) where an arm attached to the dock swings up and grabs the underrun bar. They are fairly scarce. Some places it is hard enuff to get them to put chocks out.
how often is that a concern?
Depends on if you're a driver for Swift or owner operated.[:D]quote:Originally posted by Mr. Perfect
how often is that a concern?
[:D]
And fiery auto crashes
Some will die in hot pursuit
While sifting through my ashes
Some will fall in love with life
And drink it from a fountain
That is pouring like an avalanche
Coming down the mountain
Even scarier is a driver backing up without verifying it is clear. When I was leased to TRL many moons ago we had a husband/wife team screw up. Husband was opening trailer doors, wife backed up squishing her husband on the dock. Had another accident in Iraq involving a TCN squishing a driver on a dock.
Why is it so difficult for some people to think SAFETY FIRST?
My buddy ran the forklift in and the trailer rolled about 50 feet across the lot which was slightly down hill. Luckily he was going in and not on the way out. He just rode it down. When he jumped out of the trailer, I said "who is that white boy coming out?" (He was not a white boy).[:D]
Needless to say, no more unhooking tractors at the dock.
I worked on a dock for many years, driving a forklift also drove the yard truck switching out trailers ,
I have seen many bumpers torn off the trailers and dock locks broken also forklifts momentum push the trailers away from the dock if not chocked or locked in .
a few forklift's and drivers go for a ride into the container yard in the back of the trailers [:D]
forklifts suspended between the docks and trailers or just dumped between the trailer and dock . I think if it could be done I have seen it . ( lucky no one was ever hurt .)
even with the go no go lights flashing and radio contact mistakes happened .
the chocks I have seen dragged across the container yard .
nothing like having a trailer dolly give out while your loading it and get that free fall feeling
Kinda a lock out/tag out.
Doesn't the loading dock have an under locking arm on it?
Yes, ours did. We had to repair/replace the ones where the driver drove off with the lock attached to his trailer.
Even had one trailer landing gear fold with a fork truck inside.
"Working on the loading dock at Duke Power once, my co-worker buddy was using a forklift to unload a trailer. The driver had parked against the dock, then unhooked his tractor to take it around to the garage.
My buddy ran the forklift in and the trailer rolled about 50 feet across the lot which was slightly down hill. Luckily he was going in and not on the way out. He just rode it down. When he jumped out of the trailer, I said "who is that white boy coming out?" (He was not a white boy).
Needless to say, no more unhooking tractors at the dock."
This statement leaves me baffled. This is impossible.
First of all, when the truck unhooks from the trailer, the landing gear must be cranked down. So that, there are 8 wheels at the back of the trailer, but no wheels in front! How can a trailer roll, with two, 3 inch vertical steel pipes holding up the front end?
When the engineers designed the modern 18-wheeler, many decades ago, they set them up with air brakes. There are two brake lines coming from the tractor. The blue line provides air to the trailer, so that the trailer brakes will work.
But, the red line provides constant air to the trailer, to release the trailer brakes! When the trailer is setting there, without a tractor hooked up, and there is no air provided to the red line, the trailer brakes are always locked "on."
If, as occasionally happens, a driver makes a "bad hook" and while driving down the road, the trailer disengages, the red line snaps, and the trailer brakes automatically engage. A brilliant safety feature.
The trailer is rolling along without a truck, but it won't roll very far as the brakes are locked up.
If a trailer is parked without a tractor on a hill, it won't move, because the brakes are locked.
For example, if a driver hooks up to a trailer, and does not connect the red line, he cannot pull the trailer one inch. Unless he can drag the trailer with the wheels locked.
Trailer brakes without a truck attached, to provide air on the red line, are locked tight.
If what you say it true, y'all had a fluke trailer which had defective brakes.
In fact, at some terminals, including the big Coca Cola plant in s. Atlanta near I 75 and 285, they require the driver to park his trailer at a dock, then he must disconnect his tractor, and air lines, from the trailer, and pull forward several feet. Tractor disconnected from the trailer.
This is a very effective way to prevent accidents at the dock.
Some docks simply require the driver to remove his red air line, and the forklift guy puts a lock on the red air line at the trailer. Once again, no air line from the tractor, that trailer cannot move.
Very very few terminals have the hook that comes out and hooks the rear axle of the trailer to the dock. I would say, about 1 in 75 docks.
About one in ten docks require chocks, these usually are rubber chocks that you could drive over and do no harm.
About one in 30 docks have steel chocks that if, you drive over, you will blow tires.
This is the first dock I ever have seen that has such a steel chock, with a steel pipe and a padlock.
Yes it happened. I was standing on the dock and saw it. The landing gear had little wheels on it, I think, not a flat bottom. This was in 1968 by the way.
Yep, lots of trailers had steel wheels on the landing gear, mostly a container chassis setup. And Maxi brakes aka Type 3030 brake chambers aka spring brakes were not used much back then. I am just going off of memory from working in the truck shops back in the 80s, thats many many cases of beer and bottles of cheap whiskey ago!
When I'm loading the truck I always make sure the driver is inthe warehouse where I can see him, not sitting in the cab....
Excellent policy.
There's been a few over the years I'd like to have locked into a cell beside the doc!
how often is that a concern?
Nearly every warehouse I have saw has some type of locking procedure for trucks. WATTS Regulator had a device that locked onto the DOT bumper that the forklift operator activates before he started loading the trailer.
It was not used to stop the driver from driving away. It was used to keep the truck from shifting or rolling due to the quick start/stop motions from the forklift.
Yes my tractor was attached to that trailer in the pics.
That device is designed to blow several tires if the driver tries to pull away. And it would do, and probably break a rim as well.
I have been in the industry for 6 years, have never seen landing gear with wheels on them.
That helps explain that story.
Landing gear with wheels are now Gone With the Wind and I can understand why.
I always try to check to make sure I am clear to leave a dock. I always try to walk into the warehouse and see if everything is clear. Most warehouses don't want you back there but I just barge in, and usually can. Look into my trailer and make sure it is loaded and no fork lift on board.
If there is a security guard to run me off, Plan B.
That is, usually I can stand on the ground and look inside the trailer and make sure the trailer is clear of a fork lift.
In the case of this trailer, two days ago in Chattanooga, the fork lift driver himself came out and handed me the paperwork to sign. I saw him remove the padlock and that fiendish steel chock. Obviously, that trailer was ready to roll.
I am diligent and try my best to not harm a dock worker. We are all part of the same team, trying to deliver the cargo that makes America work.
On the day my buddy rolled off with the trailer as I recall he was unloading a few pallets of transformers. He was also rolling towards a huge power sub-station, I doubt the trailer had enough momentum to get thru the fence but it looked scary. [8D]
Damn, almost 50 years ago. And I still remember my short time in that warehouse. Can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. [:I]
In the 60s DuPont had it's own truck fleet for delivery, however they discovered J.B. Hunt, CRST and Schnieder and things went way down hill after that. We had a few horror stories.
One CRST driver jumped out of his truck and came into the guard shack and said, "This is the first I've been out of that truck in over a week". He didn't need to tell us.
Another time a woman that had to be 8 months pregnant pulled up shut it off and said, "There better be somebody here that can back this thing, because I can't". She had been team driving with her husband and the company had split them up with another truck.
https://mballestero.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/bomb-on-forklift.jpg
oh I have seen more than a few sets of forks sticking out of a trailer [:D][:D]
also many sets of trailer tire destroyed dragging them out to the container yard with the brakes on making some real nice black marks and flat spots where the tread used to be
quote:Originally posted by 11b6r
Yeah, sometimes there is a boo-boo with the forklift.....
https://mballestero.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/bomb-on-forklift.jpg
quote:Originally posted by CaptFun
When I'm loading the truck I always make sure the driver is inthe warehouse where I can see him, not sitting in the cab....
Excellent policy.
There's been a few over the years I'd like to have locked into a cell beside the doc!
When I am driving the tow motor (aka forklift) I usually work with the driver to see how he wants the load distributed. When we have a full truck, it is a wide variety of heavy and light and I will load it to his preference. Usually we put the heavy stuff over the drive wheels and the lighter stuff in the back.
Most of the time we ship LTL and only have a 2-5 pallets, but SHOT and NRA we often have a full truck.