By Derek Smith
From the hair raising to the head shaking, this year’s annual collection of cautionary tales shows that when it comes to truck repairs and service, what can go wrong often will. But usually only when a technician becomes inattentive to his work or tries to cut corners.
Other times, it’s just a matter of best intentions thwarted by an overlooked factor that becomes quite obvious in retrospect. For instance, simple physics in the case of mismatched wheels or unexpectedly learning Chemistry 101 when applying a heat source to a combustible gas.
Most every technician knows the right way to do something, and most every technician, at some point in their career, tries to improve on the accepted best practice. Sometimes it results in a breakthrough, sometimes it results in something just breaking. Shop ingenuity is often the result of trial and error.
No one was hurt in any of these stories. But the results could have been far more dire in a few cases. So while this collection of tales is meant as much to amuse as inform, never snicker at safety.
“The lesson is, you simply can never be too careful,” says Jim Boyd, manager of fleet technical services with Southeastern Freight Lines. “And I don’t care how much money or effort you put toward prevention and safety. I promise you it is money in the bank. Nobody does too much when it comes to safety.”
Also, many of these stories, like all good lore, have been passed around from technician to technician, from shop to shop. They were not necessarily witnessed firsthand by the storytellers, nor were their companies – past and present – necessarily involved.
