Flatbedder gets fatally smushed by his steel load at a stop light in NJ.

Discussion in 'Trucking Accidents' started by Prom Night Dumpster Baby, Jan 29, 2014.

  1. Sublime

    Sublime Road Train Member

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    I highly doubt an aluminum headache rack would have made any difference.
     
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  3. h11way

    h11way Light Load Member

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    Jun 3, 2012
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    Too bad,hard to tell from the picture how many straps on the front of load.
     
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  4. 281ric

    281ric Road Train Member

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    When I loaded pipe I would always make sure to choke the pipe, front rear and middle and give myself a lot of room from other vehicles.
    This was a big fear of mine.
    RIP driver.
     
    25(2)+2 and blairandgretchen Thank this.
  5. RenegadeTrucker

    RenegadeTrucker Road Train Member

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    That appears to be a 45' trailer, I am going to take an educated guess and say those are 40' beams.

    as per the reg you need two straps in the first 10' and then 1 strap every 10' after that. On this load there are only 5 straps that I can see, the WLL on these 5 straps should be 5400 lbs each, x5 = 27,000 lbs aggregate.

    Now, the beams on top of that load are probably close to that alone, I suspect that load is close to 50,000 lbs, and it is stacked in 2 tiers I can see.

    When ever you have a two tier load, the bottom tier needs its own securement.

    As well with a load like this where it is stacked in a pyramid shape, a couple of belly wrap straps would be ideal to hold it all together.

    The problem being with how the load is stacked is that as you are driving the vibration can cause the pyramid to collapse, because of this collapse the straps will no longer be tight, I suspect that has a lot to do with what happened here because you can see in the pic, it doesn't even look like the straps pulled forward at all, they still appear to be perpendicular to the trailer.

    This is why you always check your load after you move a short distance, and why you need to keep checking it.

    Also on a load like this it would have been a good idea to take a couple of 4x4's and stack them with two on the bottom, then two stacked on top of them with a chain over the top holding the whole works down, this would have really helped to slow those beams down as they came forward.

    There is a lot the rest of us can learn from this, this driver committed suicide and didn't even know it.

    Even if it is a "quick" trip across town, always properly secure your load.

    Oh and one last thing, another thing that is horribly absent in this pic is any form of edge protection, if it is there I surely can not see it, I am amazed none of these straps got cut, which goes to show they were nowhere near tight enough. As far as those beams slid with out edge protection if they were as tight as they should have been, it should have cut several of those straps clean through.
     
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  6. Ubu

    Ubu Road Train Member

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    I don’t know about that.

    Notice how the back of the cab is not pushed in at all. That means one of the beams pierced the cab like an arrow. A headache rack would have spread the impact out over the enter size of the rack as I do not think that the beam would have just punched through diamond plate like it did the thin metal of the back of the cab. Having a rack on the tracker would have caused it to push in the back of the cab and crushing the sleeper absorbing a lot of the impact and that could have made a huge difference.

    Perhaps it would not have been enough to save the driver but I would rather have one on the tracker then no headache rack at all.
     
  7. RenegadeTrucker

    RenegadeTrucker Road Train Member

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    With that much force applied those beams would have gone through the cab rack like a hot knife through butter, they are only .120" thick.

    A cab rack will save you from something like a machine coming forward, or a car, or a small coil. 40-50k lbs of steel, not so much.

    It looks as though those beams went through the dash and stopped when they hit the engine. That's after going through the cab, sleeper and driver.
     
  8. jsbtrucker

    jsbtrucker Light Load Member

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    Oct 2, 2012
    Georgia
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    Very sad for driver and who he leaves behind. R I P
     
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  9. h11way

    h11way Light Load Member

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    Jun 3, 2012
    midwest
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    Hard to say what the load weigh's,belly rap's help.bulkhead's too.
     
  10. Lsv

    Lsv Light Load Member

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    Apr 13, 2013
    PA
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    RIP driver
     
  11. STexan

    STexan Road Train Member

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    Longview, TX
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    I would hope the trailer had a headache rack as you're not supposed to flatbed without either a cab or trailer rack. A cab rack would have significantly blunted the impact.

    That was some unusual steel or the steel had "folded" into itself along the way some how, possibly causing the strap tension to work loose.

    Bottom line is the load probably didn't have enough straps and/or the straps were not properly tightened. When I flatbedded, I wouldn't use plastic strap protectors on that type of steel unless I just had to because I didn't feel the strap could "grip" the steel very well with those in place.

    I wooden bulkhead may have prevented this, too.

    There was no impact with a fixed object so only braking energy was used to slow the truck and given the load shifting as it obviously did, I can only say the load was not properly secured, probably on several different levels. Plus, no legal headache rack on the cab. Those images are always used in flatbed securement classes but these occurrences continue to happen.
     
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