n A t I s I y h W ? e u Iss
C
ompliance IS an issue. Compliance and its the officer and a subsequent inspection removed the truck from the brother Safety should be a budget item equally as road -- until repairs where effected. Is our training sufficient to allow drivers to recognize such important as fuel. This goes whether you are a one problems? truck, one man operation or the largest carrier in In Ottawa, February 10th, 2017, yet another wheel off situation the world. It’s all well and good that drivers are happened. The wheel assembly of a west bound tractor trailer doing their pre-trip inspections and recording their findings but are separated from the trailer, bounced over the median barrier, they actually reporting that which they find or do they even know smashed into the cab of an east bound van going through the cab what is a problem and what isn’t. and tearing through the box and out the top of the van. The driver When a driver is stopped at the scale for an inspection, it’s not as of the van died at the scene. As this is being written, random and one may believe. Some of the problems are there is no further information but there are no reasons visible as the truck is approaching the scale. The question becomes why didn’t the driver see it. If he/she didn’t for a wheel off other than poor maintenance or improper see it, how blind are they? Did they even know what is inspection on the part of the driver. a problem? Did they just learn the sequence of inspection Sure in cold bitter weather it’s easy to slough off some of the detail during inspections but we must never ever but failed to recognize a problem clearly visible? There is slack off just because it’s uncomfortable. no excuse for the readily visible problems not being noted Recently, during a conversation with a local moving and fixed. company, the owner was lamenting the fact that his In this picture, the cracks in this aluminum bud wheel trucks had to have an annual inspection even though just didn’t happen as the truck was approaching the scale. G. Ray Gompf his actual amount of driving was a consistent 10,000 Yes, it was stopped at a scale and was noticed easily by 8
MARCH - APRIL 2017