Runaway tire hits car - GIF

[Frank S]

O,H & S has now made it so that the drivers of such vehicles, DO NOT have to even bother to check that the tyres are inflated.
I was driving semi's back in the 70'/80's and 90's and it was ALL part of the drivers job description to check on whether the tyre's were inflated, by at least giving them a thump with a short iron bar, checking that the wheel nut's were tightened and that the wheel bearings were running cool, by touching them with the back of your hand about every hour, or two hour stop, to do this checking.
Now all the effin fools do is get in the cab, nail it and leave the foot flat to the floor until they need a piss, or have arrived at the required destination.
If a flat tyre is pointed out to them, then they just ring and a "Tyre Technician" comes along and changes it for these arsewipe's.
Have not got a kind word to say about some of these infantile, moronic, dickhead steeringwheel attendants of today.

I never classed myself as a truck driver, even though I have driven them from my teens ranging from a B61 Mack with a thermodyne & 5by4 called a quadraplex to Autocars with 6x4 married with a 4 sp aux behind that and 3 speed rears being twisted by a turned up 1693 cat four and a quarter that was putting out about 100 more horses that it was designed for. Rigs with as few as 3 axles total tractor and trailer to Oil field gin pole trucks with all wheel drive and 5 axles with so many gear shifts and leavers poking through the floor board it looked like a forest of bent up steel trees to rigs with 18 axles. There was one thing every combination had in common no matter the size, You might forget to put your tooth brush in your travel bag but before you hit the road you put on a pair of coveralls pulled the 9/16" combination wrench out of your pocket and crawled underneath and checked the adjustment of every brake canister, the ones that had spring lock parking brakes you used the wrench as a measuring device by placing it against the clevis pin and canister mount to compare the notch you had ground into it at the 1 1/2" distance. After that you used your tire Billy or baton to thump each and every tire if the sound wasn't what you wanted to her you hauled out your air hose connected it to the glad hand trailer line or to quick disconnects you had installed in strategic locations and topped off all of the tires that sounded low. Additionally you checked every light to insure they were functioning if any of the hubs were oil type you cleaned off the sight glasses and made sure there was enough lube in the hub.
The one thing that was good about having to crawl under the rig to adjust the brakes was you could check to see if you had a hub seal beginning to go south or leaking by using the pocket flash light. If the rig had backing plates behind the brakes it was more difficult to see I hated backing plates.
Now days the slack adjusters are by mandate all supposed to be automatic adjusting Almost no one bothers to check then any more and even if they did they wouldn't know how to adjust them or what size wrench to use since they can be anything from 1/4" square to the old 9/16" size but very difficult to back off if you get them too tight. Also since the steering wheel holders do not crawl under their rigs to adjust the brakes they never know if a hub seal is going bad which is an indicator that the wheel bearings need tightening as well. They need an app on their phone to tell them if something is not right LOL