Safety concern??

The regulations don't address my feelings. I prefer to drive perfect equipment and drive them perfectly. Unfortunately it rarely happens that my truck, and certainly not my driving, are perfect. The dangling light doesn't make me worry about safety. I worry more about the untrained, undisciplined drivers backing into me, sideswipping me as I drive and the idiots in cars more than I worry about a dangling marker light.

 

Lights on a properly wired truck would have a hard causing a fire.

Wheel end issues cause the majority of fires.

 

I wouldn't run forever with that hanging out like that. But its low on my list of stuff catching fire. Like @MLC Adventures said, wheel ends, bearings, brakes, tires.

One year ago I had the pleasure of a wheel end catching on fire on my tanker with 8500 gallons on methanol on.

I checked everything the night before, drove 20 miles and went to bed. Got up the next morning, just checked the lights and tires and left. What I didnt know is that a wheel seal went out somewhere on my 20 mile drive the night before, and due to my laziness and a little snow falling, the bearing got hot and started a fire. I didnt see smoke because of the snow falling. But luckily a nice fella pulled up next to me and pointed back. I started slowly down and that's when the flames kicked up. Fire extinguisher and water to cool the hub down. I was lucky.


I'm much more anal about looking at the Oilers now. Complacency got me.

 

Eh happens more often then you think with a dump.....well anything really. Wouldnt be the first time some material fell out of a bucket and banged on a light leaving it only JUST in the hole. I get out and look around and its fine but first pothole i hit it pops out. Usually not a big deal just stop as soon as i see it and pop it back in. Usually replace the grommet too while im at it as its usually a worn grommet that lets it happen.

As for causeing a fire, pretty unlikely. My fuse would pop long before that happened and ive had water get inside a cracked light before, all it did was kill the light. Theres just not enough current in a marker like that to start a fire with unless your hauling explosive gas or something and already have a leak. In which case you have bigger problems like say the white hot emissions system decideing to kick off.

 

I wouldn’t leave it that way on my rig very long and most DOT wouldn’t have a big concern with it either but definitely not a safety concern. Contrary to popular belief things like this can actually happen going down the interstate. I will give the guy the benefit of the doubt that he repairs it the first time he stops.

 

Fires, and torque wrenches. Wheel end issues cause torque wrenches. Wheels started flying off stuff left and right up here for a while. So the government went crazy with new regs and made every tire guy in Onterrible buy a $1000 torque wrench, and the geniuses at the scales started checking 450ft/lb fasteners with their fingers and tormenting over re-torque documentation. Most of the wheel separations I saw left a spindle hanging in mid-air. Nothing wrong with the wheel nuts, they had both wheels, the brake drum and hub with them when they left. Leave it to government, Gene Tracy couldn’t have written that ####.

 

I drove brand new trailer where the lights popped out like that. They didn't seat very good in the round hole and a big enough bump and they pop out.