By Aston Cade
It is absolutely critical that professional truck drivers take their own safety and the safety of other road users into account when maintaining their truck. To do this, all they need to do is carry out a pre-trip inspection before embarking on driving. This will then reduce the likelihood of avoidable accidents from occurring. This is according to an 18-wheeler accident attorney based in Texas.
Central to this is to ensure that the tires on the tractor and trailer of the truck are correctly inflated. This will not only prevent potential accidents from occurring, but will also help with improved fuel efficiency.
By taking the time to properly inflate your tires, this will maximize and increase the life of your tires, which will in turn save you money in buying new tires. Properly inflated tires will also reduce the likelihood of tire failure from taking place, which in turn reduces the chances of accidents.
To check the tire properly, it is important to follow up your initial look at the tire by using a properly calibrated air pressure gauge. This will ensure that the pressure of the tire is correctly set for each tire.
While the pressure of the tire is important, there are other things to look for too. It is important that you check if there are any areas of damage to the tread of the tire, as well as the sidewall of the tire.
If you find that your tires are underinflated, this means that the tires themselves are unable to maintain their proper shape. If measures are not taken to properly inflate the tire, this means they will become flatter as you drive and will have less contact with the road. A recent piece of research identified that if a tire is just six psi under-inflated, this can lead to tire failure and potentially cause an accident.
Don’t Overinflate
Be careful not to overinflate your tires. This will mean that the tires of the truck will become too hard and stiff and this will cause other dangers too. Why is this? Well, the tire of the truck will have less contact with the road. Say you were to drive over a piece debris on the road with an overinflated tire, it could mean that your tires could become needlessly damaged.
If you are ever involved in an accident with your lorry, we would recommend you speak with arguably the best Houston 18-wheeler accident lawyer in Greg Baumgartner.
