Trailer landing gear injuries are not just caused due to operator error or distraction leading to severe head injuries. Poor maintenance in the trailer landing gear will cause the landing gear to become quite hard to crank in even low gear causing “repetitive motion injuries” to drivers who operate the manual crank on a daily basis. Most trailers after going through 2 years of operation even when properly maintained will still become more difficult to crank causing strain on the body over time. In recent years, management of fleets do see the need and the benefits for automated trailer landing ..read more

Solutions like pneumatic landing gear and hydraulic landing gear has long been introduced into the market place around 2010 have continued to fail in performance and reliability and few of those companies have gone out of business as a result of their product failure. We won’t mention names, but their websites are no longer working. Pneumatic landing gear solutions are not a good fit because of the volume of air it takes and constantly needing will exhaust the supply currently in the trailer. You might get a few drop and hooks through, but then you’ll need to reload air. Hydraulic landing gear ..read more

Many fleets do not realize the total lost they incur besides the worker’s comp premiums and losing the driver for 3-6 months or more. One of customers said that when one driver is injured (regardless of the injury) and cannot drive, their company takes a huge hit and he pointed out these facts: Scenario A: hiring a new driver The cost of HR bringing on a new driver The training associated with hiring a new driver The inexperience of the new driver causing potential accidents and damages to equipment Scenario B: no new driver  Truck and trailer sitting in the yard not producing revenue = lost r ..read more

Ultralift’s power tool solution has been chosen by many companies along with many owner operators who simply like to work smarter and safer, not harder and inefficient. Safety prevention for the trucking industry has long been a strong focus for many years due to many driver injuries that occur every year in a huge driver shortage environment. Keeping drivers safe should be just as high of a priority as other areas of improvement within the fleet. Trailer landing gear safety needs more awareness as it is among the top 5 highest injuries to truck drivers every year according to data by ATA and ..read more

In case you opt to never try Ultralift’s power tool system for raising and lowering your trailer landing gear, here’s a quick guide to help you safely continue the 100+ year old cranking method: Experts tips to safely crank your trailer landing gear (alternative to automated landing gear solutions): Maintain good posture by bracing yourself against the trailer and keeping your feet firmly in place on the ground. Make sure you are cranking the correct gear of your trailer landing gear. High gear for lowering and low gear for raising.  Keep your face as far away as possible from the crank handle ..read more

The trucking industry lost about 100 jobs in the month of September, marking what some analysts believe may be the beginning of a negative outlook for the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018. If they’re correct, that means it’s more important than ever to safeguard the existing workforce and to focus on improvements in overall efficiency. Installation of the Ultralift power tool is a means of doing both these things. In the first place, it can reduce truck driving injuries and instances of back problems from truck driving. This in turn can reduce the instance of workers’ compensation claims ..read more

In 2014, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration adopted a new rule allowing for the revocation of licenses for operators who have been found to conceal a history of safety violations through the use of “chameleon companies”. Yet the problem persists: trucking operators change the names of their companies or spread their operations across several front companies in order to limit the public scrutiny that follows them after past violations. You can expect savvy clients and discriminating job-seekers to be aware of this trend. Unfortunately, the poor behavior of other trucking operators ..read more

The latest data shows that truck driving remains one of the most dangerous professions in the country, accounting for 918 fatalities in the year 2016 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. No doubt this is a major contributing factor in the difficulty that many trucking operators face in filling positions and keeping them filled. That issue is made worse by the fact that the pay scale for the industry doesn’t always compensate for the danger of injury and death from collisions and on-the-job accidents. This is enough of a disincentive for some drivers even when they aren’t aware o ..read more

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a lot of headlines boasting that certain companies have turned tax cut savings into bonuses for their employees. Some of those stories involve trucking companies. And while we would never try to stand in the way of improved compensation for truck drivers, we can’t help but wonder whether these sorts of one-time bonuses are really the best way of utilizing a sudden savings, either for trucking companies or for their employees. As is well-known, employee retention is a common problem among trucking companies, and not without reason. It’s a stressful job that takes a t ..read more

The topic of truck driving technology made its way into the popular press recently when The Atlantic published an article on the future of self-driving trucks. The piece strove to paint a rosy picture of automation in the trucking industry, and thus made an important point: Making things easier for truck drivers does not necessarily mean making truck drivers obsolete. Sometimes we worry that people who could personally benefit from the Ultralift power tool are opposed to the idea of their trucking companies installing it. Some of those people might very well think that any new technology is a ..read more