Suicide or just lazy?

Wow 70s, sorry to hear that. Heavy equipment hauling is probably the hardest type of trucking, due to the extreme weight of these machines. Like you say, on a stop like that, not much will hold it. Once, however, I did see a rollover, and the dozer and trailer on it's side, and the dozer was still chained to the trailer. Now that was a good chain job.

 

Yea that driver was lucky. Brother in law was killed in dec 96 just before christmas. I have hauled loads grossing nearly 150,000 lbs so those chains are no match to some of that stuff.

 

Yea he definitely should have had more than two chains on that one. I wouldve had at least 5 on it- two across each axle and one across the bucket arm to keep the bucket from rising above the gooseneck.

 

Yea I used to hook chains to the cab itself of those loaders but with them springing up and down the way they do, they broke a couple of chains on me so I started criss crossing them on the axles themselves and across the bucket arms. lol I was loading a 977 once and it had been raining so the field I picked it up in was muddy so naturally the tracks were muddy. I started up on the trailer with it and just as it broke over the hump, the right track slipped off the side of the trailer so one track was sitting on the ground and the other on the trailer. Scared the heck out of me.

 

Hi 70s, oh yeah, that will quicken the pulse. I've loaded lots of steel tracked machines on steel ramps, and always wore my seat belt, in case of an upset. I used to wire a piece of tire to the steel ramps, and that helped a lot.

 

Sorry about your brother in law but if his load snapped those chains that easy there was something wrong with the chains.
I can think off 3 possebilities
1°weak chains
2°not enough chains
3°some were not as tight as others

Don't see this as a attack on your brother in law.
It is just a lot off people read on this forum and i think it is important they know the right information.