Csa Heightened Trucker Safety Requirements

“Not only was he at the right place in the right time, but he took the initiative to stop, help and call in the incident and let police know what was going on. That was huge in this coming to the resolution that it did. He was a great witness – that guy made a difference.” Oregon State Police Sgt. Pat Shortt had this glowing praise to say of Mark Knappenberger, an OOIDA member from Wheelersburg, OH.

What did he do that was so incredible? Quite simply, he was instrumental in rescuing a kidnapped mother and daughter. The full details can be found on Land Line Magazine, but include the fact that he not only called 911, but calmed the mother, and allowed her to find safe haven within his truck while she reported details to the officers.

The reason I bring this up is quite simple - truckers such as this one may very well be a vanishing breed, through no fault of their own. It only takes a little bit of thought to conjure up a frightening possibility: the fact that due to federal regulations, quite a few of the good Samaritan drivers out today could find themselves sitting at home instead of being able to help like Mark Knappenberger, or Bill Poulos (A FedEx driver who a short time later pulled the daughter out of the wreck that she was trapped in) did.

In 2010, federal agencies were instrumental in passing and enforcing over 40 major new regulations that affected industries as widely ranged as Duke Energy, the Association of American Railroads, chemical manufacturer FMC Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., Bayer, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association.

Such laws included the CSA 2010 which heightened safety requirements for truck drivers, and increased the number of factors that could cause a driver to be pulled off the street by an order of magnitude. While I’m not going to argue that safer roads are something to aspire towards, the fact remains that quite a few of the drivers would fail to meet the new regulations, for something as simplistic as a few millimeters of wear on a trailer kingpin.

Again, ensuring that worn kingpins do less to contribute to large accidents is a noble endeavor, but the implementation of the law leaves much to be desired, much like kingpin replacement is a poor substitute for a kingpin refurbishment. While both accomplish the same end goal, refurbishing the kingpin is less expensive, and does not cause problems with adjacent systems (like wear on the bolster plate, or weakness in the anchoring cross-beam).

By: Lyle Wilson

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For more information on trailer kingpin repair and why kingpin replacement is not a good idea, check out Kingpin Specialists online.