Saturday, November 20, 2010

Culpability

 


A beautiful November morning here at my woodland homestead; foggy. It's easier to be up before dawn on the weekends now that the days are shorter, the nights longer. Then again I went to bed at a reasonable hour last night as well, even though it was Friday night. I was beat. They've been running me ragged at work, the stores I service gearing up for Black Friday. Things should quiet down from here on out, with only the Winter to contend with.

Yesterday morning was interesting. I crawled along looking for my load but none of the company trailers were mine. There was one more at the end of the row that had to be it, but unfortunately a Roehl driver (the name of another trucking company) was backing under a trailer sitting right next to it. That made it difficult as the spacing there at Electrolux is tight. I'd have to back in at an angle so that our mirrors wouldn't clash and I wouldn't be able to pull out until after he left or the tail of my trailer would take the nose of his tractor off.

I was waiting till he got hooked to back under my own trailer. I saw it happening, the white of the halogen yard lights flooded in offset intervals by the flashing amber of our four-ways. The trailer was too high on its landing gear, as they almost always are there. I think they raise them to better accommodate the docks. I back slightly under the nose of the trailer, get out and raise the landing gear and then back all the way up till the locking mechanism in the fifth wheel snaps around the kingpin. Of course I'm there every day and know how it is. But that's something that every driver has to watch out for, every time they hook to a trailer.

If you don't catch it, either by sight or feel as you ease backwards it's usually not a big problem. The fifth wheel bumps the king pin and you know it's not right by the sound, so you do the “tug test” and your suspicions are confirmed. The problem is easily solved by lowering the trailer and trying it again. Sometimes, however, the trailer is so high that the fifth wheel completely passes the kingpin. This is a problem because the back of the fifth wheel springs up so that the leading edge is down, the better to get under and lift a low trailer. Once you’ve gone too far the fifth wheel has to be manually held down somehow (and often the trailer raised which can be especially difficult if the load is heavy) to clear the kingpin again; a dirty greasy job, in tight quarters, and one you want to keep fingers and other body parts well away from.

This is what I saw happening, in the periodic amber flashes. Roehl was going too far. By the time I even thought of grabbing the CB mic to warn him it was too late. I went ahead and very carefully, as he might well be out of his tractor and vulnerable, backed under my trailer, then got out to help.

Long story short: we were successful, of course. It only took about five minutes. Roehl broke his broom handle but oh well, it would have been greasy anyway. All in all it was an easy fix; it's a good thing that the loads there at Electrolux aren't generally heavy.

What happened next is a mystery.

We both went about the business of hooking to our loads. I raised the landing gear, gently backed to click the locking mechanism, then did the tug test where you pull against the kingpin with the trailer brakes still engaged to make sure you're attached. I was very careful throughout since Roehl was out there somewhere doing his inspection and I didn't want to rock the trailer; to frighten or hurt him. During my inspection I noticed that the tandems were too far back (we've talked about this before) so I pulled the pin release lever and waited until I saw that Roehl was in his cab before I pushed the trailer backward, got out to reengage the pins, then gave the rig another little tug to make sure they were locked.

I'm proactive with my paperwork so in a flash I was ready to go, but Roehl was still sitting there. This is what I was afraid of. I was eyeballing the clearance to see if I thought maybe I could make it when Roehl pulled out. “Sweet,” I thought. It wasn't that I was in a hurry exactly, but I didn't have much time to spare and I'd already given some of that away. I started to pull out but something didn't sound or feel right. I wondered if maybe the tandem pins hadn't engaged so I got out to check but they were OK. My sin then was in not being thorough and checking other things that might have been the problem. I tried to pull away again but stopped when there was a loud clang and a jolt to the tractor.

“What the hell!” I yelled, frustrated. It had sounded just as if the tandems had slid all the way to the stops at the end of their rails. “I checked that!” I said as I jumped out of the tractor to see what the hell was happening. The tandems were fine. In fact they were sitting exactly where they were before I tried to pull out, both in relation to the length of the trailer and to where they were positioned in the parking lot. The trailer hadn't moved at all, but my tractor had. The nose of the trailer was completely off of the frame of the tractor sitting on the rubber of the rear drive tires and the air and electrical lines were stretched almost to the breaking point. It could have been a lot worse.

Grrrrr, grumble grumble, work work. Like I say, it could have been a lot worse. It's a damn good thing the loads there at Electrolux aren't heavy. A quarter hour later I was on my way. Roehl was still there, pulled off to the side. He'd been kind to get out of my way and now he must have been deliberating over his route or log book or something. I got on the CB to ask if he'd seen what had happened to me but he didn't have it on; so it wouldn't have helped even if I'd tried to warn him of his immanent danger earlier. Oh well, I thought it somehow interesting that we'd both had kingpin troubles but while I wasn't in a hurry before I was now. I did the (within reason) aggressive driving thing and made my first stop in the nick of Electrolux's guillotine time.

How does that happen? I was so careful! Was I too careful? Was I so concerned about that other driver out there that I didn't actually do the tug test, but put it off till later, then forgot that I had? A visual test is standard as well, didn't I do that, in the confusion of the moment? Then what about when I set the tandem pins? I had originally pushed the trailer too far backward for my preferences so I know that I would have pulled forward to test the setting, another definite tug. How in Goddess's name do I protect myself from the inexplicable?

I'm loath to admit it but I make quite a few mistakes. Most are inconsequential, minor errors of etiquette or operational complacency, though even those are potentially dangerous. Maybe if men were meant to move goods they'd have been given horses. I'd have joined the Teamsters if Reagan hadn't deregulated transportation. But I digress.

Most mistakes that become apparent I can definitively account for, and promise myself to do better. This one I can't. There's another event that scares me even deeper that I'm unsure of. It happened in relation to an experience that I've shared, but haven't yet found on the blog here to link to. I was in central St. Louis doing a side run for the Aurora account. I was turning left in afternoon traffic when I saw that the signal turned yellow. I'd waited through the entire light with nary a break so I was just thinking of getting out of everybody's way and started to go but the nearest oncoming car didn't yield. I stopped and let him pass then popped the clutch get it done but the next car coming down the pike was still moving like it was a green light. There was a moment of confusion but I was already committed. She followed me down the next road and made it certain that I knew her displeasure.

What the hell? The light was yellow, wasn't it? It was an odd intersection, remnant of a time before the internal combustion engine, but how odd could it be that a left turn lane would get a red light with a green for the oncoming traffic? The best I can figure is that I imagined that the light had turned yellow. Can I trust my own senses? If man was meant to move he'd have been given two legs. At least I'll know now to double check the light with a glance the next time the oncoming traffic refuses to yield when I think they ought.