Truck Driver Killed by his load 4-22-16

Yet another reason to have a cb.

 

I don't think a CB would have made much difference in this instance. When you look at the load this guy was hauling, he would have been able to look out his mirrors and easily see his straps - more to the point, how loose they had become without the need for stopping.

In addition to that, after you do your first couple of load checks, straps will usually stay good and tight on a steel load like this. Which tells me he may have not even done his first.

"In flatbed, laziness kills".

Speeding, not doing load checks...

A CB then, or even listening to it, probably wouldn't have made any difference. On top of that, if he had been listening, he might have told the driver who tried to warn him to go stuff it.

Yep. It looks like one of those situations, where it wasn't a question of if it was going to happen, but a question of when.

I may be completely wrong here. The guy's death might have indeed just been an unfortunate accident. But with everything we're learning, my guess is it was the driver's failure to do his job right that lead to him getting killed.

 

I've did flatbed most of my driving career and I probably over strap/chain. I don't want my cargo coming off and killing somebody because I was lazy.

 

I've hauled some super sketchy loads. And I tell you what ... you are the master of your load. If it looks unsafe, you let that shipper know, it's gotta be a certain way or you ain't takin it. I had a load of dump truck hydraulic assymblis already painted (no chains allowed). I still chained over my straps. It was an unstable load the way the shipper staked it. I pulled over every two hours or so that first day to readjust. And every 4 hours day two just to make sure. Sometimes it's not worth the risk to haul ### for that money when the case is actually slow and steady wins the race.

 

Saw a guy this morning in MO with a load of those painted beams, not a single strap on it, all chains and no protection under them.

 

Service failure! XD

 

Screw that. Beams staying put are more important than a little paint.

 

Here's what I don't understand. 99 times out of a 100 these beams will never be seen once the building is built. What's wrong with some touch-up paint?

 

Oh, I agree 100%! Nevertheless, these companies who receive these beams, will raise all kinds of heck if there are a lot of scratches on them. On top of that, if it rains while the driver is in transit and those scratches show rust, they're likely to reject the whole load!

And that is the problem. Drivers are darned if they do, and darned if they don't.

I suppose it boils down to a choice. Do I risk getting killed? Or do I risk getting a service failure of such magnitude that it could get me fired - and possibly hinder my chances of getting another job driving truck, if I do!

Neither are very good choices, are they? But the simple fact of the matter is, are these shippers and receivers, much less these major trucking companies, give the first iota about the safety of the driver. Another driver can always be found; deaths mean that insurance companies are going to pay the costs. Whereas a load rejected is the trucking company's responsibility. So all three are going to tell you to strap these beams the way they want you to. Period. It's going to take the enactment of some very serious laws for any of this to change.

The DOT can sit up there on their ivory thrones and talk about HOS-enforcement, EODs, speed-limiters and trucking safety all they want. But unless they start doing something about stuff like this, and get serious about doing something about it, all that talk is little more than political nonsense meant to assuage the motoring public and to give them the illusion that they are doing something to make trucks safer on our roads.

Yeah, let one of these loads come off of the trailer and kill a bunch of people - then the DOT will start doing something about it. In example of this, trucks that transported crushed cars, for years, only had to put straps or chains over the cars. But ever since that deadly accident in Louisville, KY, where that truck rubbed the K-barrier by going too fast around that curve on I-65 and cut his straps, causing the crushed cars to spill into opposing traffic on the southbound side of I-65, all flatbeds are now required to place securement under rub rails, and these crushed-car-haulers are now required to put nets over their cargo. Up until that point, there were no laws at all that required any of this.

The DOT is famous for closing barn doors after the horses got out. This situation is no different. Truckers are going to keep losing these loads, some of them getting killed by them, until the DOT finally wakes up to what's going on in the real world and starts really doing something about it.

 

@Barefootstallion
In short ,it is all about the money.
What is the value off a driver's life?
Very little as it turns out.

There are many things that can be done to improve safety but are regarded as being not cost efficient.