Should Drivers Know More About Maintaining Truck Tires?

27 Mar by Vitaliy Dadalyan

Should Drivers Know More About Maintaining Truck Tires?

By Jim Park

Drivers should perform weekly pressure checks on a truck they are familiar with. Daily checks should be done on any vehicle they don’t drive every day. Photo: Michelin

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Round and black. Sometimes that’s the extent of what drivers know — or want to know — about tires. Unfortunately, drivers need to know more about their tires, and they really need to be proactive when it comes to inspecting and maintaining them. But it’s never easy convincing drivers to get up close and personal with those round black things.

An 18-wheel pressure check can easily eat up half an hour; more if the tires need to be topped up. With mandatory electronic logs now putting even more pressure on their time, drivers are even less likely give up driving time to a probably unpaid task. It may help to remind them that investing 30 minutes once a week to closely inspect their tires could help prevent an on-road failure that could cost them several hours of downtime… but probably not.

Getting a little cooperation from drivers might be achieved by providing a lesson in how tires work and some of the perils of poor maintenance.

“It’s one thing to tell a driver that if they do this or don’t do that, something unpleasant might happen,” says Joe Puff, vice president of truck technology and maintenance at Downers Grove, Illinois-based NationaLease. “But when they can understand the consequences of their actions, or inactions, they might be more predisposed to look after those assets. Or at least not intentionally do anything that might compromise tire life or safety.”

For example, Puff says drivers should be taught the dangers of reinflating a tire that has been run 20% or more under-inflated.

“We remind them all the time to check their inflation pressure, but we send a possibly conflicting message to …Read the rest of this story

Source:: http://www.truckinginfo.com/channel/drivers/article/story/2018/03/should-drivers-know-more-about-maintaining-truck-tires.aspx