Picture this: your team is loading a trailer, the cab unit has been removed and all seems fine, until your trailer suddenly tips forward. The outcome: damaged goods, potential injuries and losing valuable time while operations come to a complete halt. It is a nightmare scenario but one that happens more than you think.
Fortunately, while trailer tipping is a hidden risk you can’t ignore, it’s easy to protect against once you understand the causes.
Why Trailer Tipping happens
When a cab unit is disconnected and the trailer rests on its landing legs, even a small shift in weight can spell disaster. A trailer’s stability depends on its centre of gravity, specifically that it always remains between the wheels and landing legs. Heavy loads or a forklift at one end can alter this balance and cause the trailer to tip, something made more probable on uneven surfaces. Another common cause is landing leg failures as they can struggle under uneven weight and shifting loads.
The Impact
Without effective safety processes, loading docks are high-risk for accidents. This can potentially lead to legal and insurance implications as well as costly downtime for your company. Beyond the financial cost of these preventable accidents, there is a human cost that could be far greater. Even if no one is directly injured, employees may feel more at risk and loose confidence in the company’s ability to keep them safe at work, affecting morale and productivity across the team.
How can we prevent it?
The good news is that using the correct safety equipment such as can hugely mitigate against the risk of trailers tipping. As well as wheel chocks, a must-have in your loading bay safety kit is the trailer safety support (also known as a prop stand).
This is a safety device made from heavy duty steel, placed under the fifth wheel to prevent tipping forward by taking some of the trailer’s load, and providing vertical support to counter the weight shift.
Trailers should only be (un)loaded on solid ground, as uneven surfaces can cause instability, and potentially lead to damage of the trailers’ built in landing legs. The high pressures generated by a trailers’ landing legs can lead to damage to the ground over time, so trailer landing leg supports should be used to distribute the pressure over a wider surface area and prevent this damage from becoming a much more dangerous problem.
Safety is paramount
Trailer tipping is a serious risk especially during loading and unloading. However, by using these pieces of equipment, stable ground conditions, proper safety training and a proactive safety mindset, it is a risk that can be controlled and mitigated.
Recognising hazards in your workplaces the first step to prevent accidents. Small investments in safety equipment today can save you a lot of time, money and disruption in the long run; while protecting what matters most, your people.
