A trailer is often one of the most used assets in construction, landscape, and other business fleets. Using ramps and rolling equipment onto your trailer is a tedious, yet necessary and daily task. Load the trailer, then unload, then load again. It’s the same song and dance day by day.
DISADVANTAGES OF TRADITIONAL
The traditional trailers employed in your fleet are necessary, but that doesn’t mean they come without problems and annoyances.
Above-Ground Loading
When loading a traditional trailer with equipment, ramps must be used to allow the vehicle to roll onto the trailer. Ramps come with their disadvantages and safety concerns—not to mention that they can be a pain. Ramps must be placed and removed each time they are used. They also take up valuable space on your trailer or in the bed of your truck.
Unleveled Equipment
Most equipment is designed to tackle reasonable grades for reasonable amounts of time. Yet adding steep grades while loading is more stressful and less safe. Above-ground loading causes equipment to become unlevel for a significant amount of time throughout the loading process and often while traveling on the road after the loading process.
Difficult to Load Certain Equipment
Some equipment is easy to maneuver. Other equipment is more tricky and requires more practice and patience. Some ramps, such as wheel ramps, leave little margin for error. Another problem with traditional trailers comes with low-clearance equipment. If one isn’t careful enough, they could easily damage their expensive equipment or send themselves to the emergency room.
Requires Coupling
To load a trailer properly, it should always be coupled to a truck to prevent it from moving or rolling away. However, this prevents other operators from using a truck elsewhere in the meantime.
Requires Two or More
Many operators are able to maneuver small equipment onto a trailer on their own relatively easily. But with larger equipment, multiple people are needed to monitor and help with the loading and unloading of equipment, which costs your company time and money.
Employee Safety Issue
Your employees are your most valuable asset. An injured employee means time spent away from work, less productivity, and in worse cases, a lawsuit. Although it’s been briefly mentioned, traditional trailers can be breeding grounds for unsafe and risky work practices. An operator could slip off a ramp, a tilt bed could be improperly handled, and the list of what could go wrong while maneuvering equipment is extensive.
Time-Consuming
Pull the equipment near the trailer. Grab the ramps. Align the ramps with the equipment’s wheels. Drive up the ramp. Level the equipment. Secure the equipment. Replace the ramps. And sometimes there are even more steps involved in the loading process than the steps listed. That list alone is enough to show that loading with a traditional trailer is time-consuming.
Rough Ride
A smooth trailer ride depends on a variety of factors: the trailer’s quality, the placement of the load, the road traveled, etc. But most trailers aren’t equipped with very good suspension systems, causing a bumpy ride for your truck and your equipment.
ALTERNATIVE ADVANTAGES
Trailers are valuable assets. They get your equipment from the yard to the jobsite. Without them, your business would suffer. But the disadvantages listed show that this valuable asset is in dire need of a few upgrades for safer and easier operations.
One company seeks those upgrades through a hydraulic, ground-level solution. Air-tow Trailers engineered a trailer that completely lowers its deck to the ground for loading and unloading. An Air-tow comes with its advantages, both obvious and not so obvious.
It’s possible you’ve worked with traditional trailers for decades. You’ve mastered the art of loading and unloading. You might think, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” But if there’s an alternate solution that is safer and requires less work, that could equate to bottom-line savings and employee retention.
On top of Air-tow Trailers’ obvious benefits, the brand also designs exclusive trailers to help you perform your best. Exclusive designs feature drop-deck/dump (ground loading with full dump capabilities) and dock height (ground loading with a deck rise of up to 60 inches for dock loading). We’re not telling you that your current method of towing equipment is bad, we’re just saying there could be a better solution.
MODERN WORKTRUCK SOLUTIONS:
OCTOBER 2019 ISSUE
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