Pickup Rear-Ends Semi

Trucker was probably fined for being in her way, and not having enough reflective tap. Even though we can see the tape.

 

Reflective tape and lights on your trailer needs to be taken very seriously,in todays litigious society. Only involved in 2 serious accidents in my 45+ years of driving a semi,and one of those accidents was very similar to this one. I was sitting at a red lite,minding my own business and a car piled into the back of my trailer at speed,car never hit his brakes. Luckily I had witnesses that told the police that. But they did a real serious accident investigation,including the operation of my lights,and having correct reflective tape. Insurance investigators even came to my house the next day,took more pictures of the back of my trailer. Everything I had was correct,but I can only imagine how it would have gone if I didn't have the tape on correctly,lights not working,or something similar.
I was found zero responsibitly,and the insurance company of the car that hit me,paid my repairs and downtime. Remember,every one and their brother nowadays carries a cellphone camera,make sure your ducks are in a row.

 

Reflective tape got mandated about 1994 I believe.

I was coming upgrade on 15 near Hanover, mechanicsburg exit towards a hilltop mom and pop truckstop where a big truck loaded with reflective tape crossed the divide highway in my face as fast as he could shift.

I came out of that really thick fog to be presented first by the tape across my road (Lost some seconds with a mental WTF) BRAKED really HEAVILY very fast and hard to buy time to get him clear with his own power. I would have absolutely T boned him and got killed or worse within about 6 seconds. I needed 4 to make the slow up to 30 from 75 and then another few to find a new gear manually and get back up to speed limit which was 55.

If I was that pickup I would have done whatever I could NOT to hit that trailer decap bar. (Decap means decapitation, take your head off and put your body into the back seat, drivers seat will fail and break backwards past the clip that holds the recline angle; maybe even rip it out of the 4 big bolts that hold it to the floor.)

Certain trailer models a few years ago were tested for ramming safety and these actually FAILED completely to meet certain safety critera by the National Safety Board related to crash testing. So if you possess one of these trailer models that failed formal crash testing, you do want to dump it and sell it. Today. It's a liability to you in court.

 

I passed a guy today that had painted his back doors flat black. I thought to myself how well that must work at night.

 

Theres a hirshbach truck i think, maybe wrong company....anyway the driver has every square inch of the truck bumper to bumper, from the bottom of the door to the ground covered in all different colors of reflective tape. I wish i took a picture of it at the trucks stop. It was hideous as all hell, but i guess that driver was just being extra safe.

 

What about lowboys, step decks and other low trailers (which is what I own), there is not much room for reflective tape?

 

That's what I hauled. Picture is the only one I have handy that shows the reflective tape on the back of my lowboy,kind of hard to see it all. But its across the ICC bar,which is heavy square tubing,and across the top. Second pic is my flip axle. Tape is all across under the wide load sign also.

 

Thanks a lot. I have a similar trailer but without flip axle provision (TK60MG). Great trailer. Just changed airbags on it. I will double check presence of tape on it but I think that I am good.

Love the machine gun pointing backwards, bet it really cuts down on the number of people willing to rear end you.

 

Yeah,whenever I hauled those,I never had any tailgating issues. Gun trajectory is about windshield height.