I've seen some neck snapping double takes before, but this caught me off guard. I had no idea anyone was so stupid they didn't crank down the tension to incredible degrees of tightness
Word from the source is that no one died. The cause of the incident was fog. Driver was driving too fast for the conditions and didn't see stopped traffic ahead of him, so he slammed on his brakes.
https://www.facebook.com/mothertruckerr/posts/199166410576822
That guy (gal) won life's lottery.
ReplyDeleteThat's why you should never haul pipe, rod, angle iron, I-beams, etc. on a truck or trailer without a bulkhead. You can bind that shit as tight as you want, but if the truck suddenly stops, that shit's gonna keep going. Truck cabs and sleepers are made out of beer cans. Even if that pipe was only going about 10 mph as it slid on the trailer, it would still go right through cab. Stuff like this has been happening since there's been trucks. I remember when I was a kid, watching a driver's ed film, made in the 1950's, showing a driver crushed against the steering wheel and dashboard by a load of 4" pipe - gave me nightmares. The momentum of heavy loads is more powerful than almost anyone can imagine. Once I was hauling a piece of of precast concrete used for building parking garages. The piece was extra wide so was placed on A-frames so it could be hauled at a 45 degree angle. Driver's were responsible for binding the load, but the company was responsible for securing the A frames to the trailer. Well, they didn't do that properly and the first stop sign I came to, the A-frames fell down, shifting the load about 4 feet forward. The momentum pushed the entire truck right through the intersection while I was stepping on the brakes as hard as I could.
ReplyDeleteDamn.
DeleteIt's my experience that drivers don't get enough training. There are about 90 years of trucking, and hundreds for drayage, and damn it, lessons have been learned about the best ways to do things...
no matter what, jack ass companies always deny any responsibility, and lay it all on the most likely guy to get fired, and least trained, the driver.
When I worked at Raytheon, they were always happy to see a load head out, and we shipped some heavy stuff, and one transformer slid off the trailer right in front of the building, on the entry ramp to the freeway, and all of us repair techs knew right then we'd be testing all that stuff that was damaged on the trailer that the transformer hit when sliding.
Drivers used to get enough training - from the time they were old enough to climb up into a cab. In the old days, men were truckers, 'cause their dads were truckers. They'd ride with their fathers and learn about every part of the job before they were even old enough to drive. That's how trucking got in their blood. Guys like these knew their entire rig. They knew when things were right, and could diagnosis problems by the way their rig felt and sounded. They could make the call on whether to keep going and get a load delivered on time, or shut down and prevent the need for a major repair or risk running with a major safety issue. These guys were truly one with their machines and they could made enough money to raise a family and retire.
DeleteThat's all quickly fading away. Today, in the name of safety, we bar competent men from driving just because they might have had a few beers and were caught driving their own cars home from a bar, even though they would never even have thought of drinking when operating a big truck.
Independent truckers are getting squeezed out by regulations, and economies of scale. Large trucking companies still need drivers, but don't want to pay drivers any more than they have to. The result is them hiring foreign drivers who have no records (do not confuse that with them never having done anything wrong) in the U.S. They may not have any strikes against them on their driving records, but they've also never driven a large truck before. Not only do they not have any experience driving trucks, they don't fully understand our language and culture. Many of them have never driven anything but an ox cart before they came over here.
All this in the name of safety, but let me ask you this, who do you feel safer sharing the road with? A guy who grew up trucking and knows everything about truck and the trucking the business, who may have once gotten a DUI, driving his own car, or a foreigner who only a short time ago, knew absolutely nothing about trucks, our laws, our roads, and our culture?
Theses types of loads are very difficult to secure from moving back and fourth. A 200 lbs. guy can only get the chains, straps, etc. so tight. Cyclindrical loads, H,I beams and C channel just dont have anything to grip onto. 30-40 tones of steel is gonna keep moving if you stomp on the breaks.
ReplyDeleteI'm just using the images to crack a joke to ease the tragedy of the situation... I do know something of loads, I have been a driver up to 35 tons.
DeleteAnyone can use a force multiplier though, a cheater bar, a piece of pipe on the ratchet handle can make ridiculously high amounts of power for anyone.
As we know, the worst of any loads has a proven best method for securing, and round stock can be prepped with clamps to give straps something to fix on to keep things from moving.
Maybe not enough to stop 40 tons from moving after a panic stop, but even that scenario must have a time tested and proven method to prevent truckers from injury and equipment damage
I thought DOT reg required a headache rack on the front of the flatbed trailer or on the back of the tractor ?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. You'd think the driver would ensure the safest hauling he could, regardless of regulations, for his sake both personally and professionally
DeleteMy late wife's niece lost her 1st husband when a load of pipe came through the cab of his truck.I think it was close to Pasco Wa..maybe 20+ years ago..
ReplyDeleteI even have a headache rack on my Silverado today...
Damn. I learned my lesson easy when an engine block rolled in my pickup bed, dented right into the back of the cab, from the seperate bed wall. So, two sheets of metal were pushed my way, on a 30 pound rolling engine block, one time.
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