U Have The Right Load?

D'oh!!

A few years back I picked up a load in Stuttgart AR on a Fri afternoon that was going to Southbridge MA for Mon morning. I had plenty of time on the load so I decided to go to our West Memphis terminal to get some laundry and shopping done. I dropped the trailer on the yard and went off to do my shopping. The next morning I picked the trailer back up and headed to the final. I was almost to my destination on Sun evening when I stopped in Willington CT to get fuel. I looked at the number on the trailer to enter it into the card reader and something didn’t seem quite right about it so I checked the number against my paperwork. OH CRAP I had the wrong trailer! The number was similar but …well no cigar. I checked the nose box to see if there were bills in it and, sure enough, I had freight that was supposed to be in South Bend IN monday morning. I did NOT want to make this call to dispatch. Long story short I caused both loads to be late and ran about 1000 miles for free not to mention all that wasted fuel. To keep this sort of thing from ever happening to me again I make sure now I always leave the paperwork in the nose of the trailer if I drop it and that way when I hook back to it if I’ve got the right paperwork then I have to have the right load. Anytime I screw up I try to develop a habit to keep it from happening again. So what mistake have you made or seen made and what is the habit you developed to keep it from happening in the future?

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