Secure your Load

This happened in our area. Don't know what caused it. Equipment failure? Operator error? The driver did not survive.
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article ... ck_check=1

He probably was moving it a short distance and figured it would take longer to chain down than to move. It only takes an instant for an accident to happen. It's sad to see these things.

He never had a chance. The stopping forces are always the greatest on a load. Like Barnyard said.He was probably on going a short distance. I know people who have done things like that.

I looked the pictures over pretty close, and saw no pictures of chains or binders anywhere in them. In all the pictures the trailer is down in the unloading position, but i suspect when it was raised for transport the floor would have been higher. My guess would be he hit his brakes for traffic and the loader went over the top of the goose neck of the trailer and just slid on forward.

I hate to say it but I have seen people load a tractor on a trailer, leave it in gear, raise the ramps, and take off. Scares me to death to even think about the possibilities.

Al

So sad to see when it could have been easily avoided. My old dad (may he rest in peace) used to say the time to tie down a load is just after you load it.
Donegal Cub.

...;..... My old dad (may he rest in peace) used to say the time to tie down a load is just after you load it.
Donegal Cub.

Some very good advice, wish I had been paying attention to it early last summer. Don't even remember where I was going, but it was supposed to rain the next day, so late at night I loaded my cub on the trailer parked under a metal carport, thinking I would tie it down the next morning in the day light. Got in the truck and pulled it up to house to load some other stuff, and when I looked in the mirror the tractor was rolling backward on the trailer. Thank goodness I had put the tailgate in. Have not waited to tie one down since.

Reading some of the comments, one of the responders said there were chains laying around, and close examination of the pictures showed what appeared to be at least 2 binders laying on the ground. I commented about the front of the trailer being on the ground, but Rabbit Holler Flash said it was locked in the low transport position when he looked at the pictures. If you compare the long building behind it in some of the pictures, it appears he was going down a fairly good grade.

And I always thought log haulers were the one's taking a chance. Course, that's was a heavy load on wheels. Feel for the family.

I worked for a major Flatbed hauling Co. We hauled it if it would fit on the trailer. A lot of steel coils from up north, down to Laredo TX then into MX.

We all went through a full week of training on loading, strapping, and tarping.

New guy gets his first load, a 50k lb steel coil in the middle of winter. The coils were loaded inside the building, and once on his trailer, he asked the loader how they strap them down.

Operator said "most just tarp them and go". So he did.

When he arrived in Laredo several days later, as normal, the safety man helped him untarp his load.

He got fired on the spot.

As we were sitting around talking about it later that day, the safety inspector said that perhaps we should not have fired him. That anyone that can haul a steel coil from the frozen north, to the Rio Grande, with no chains and just a tarp on it without it moving

Is a darn good driver.

He still lost his job.

Yeah he possibly was a very good driver, he was certainly a very LUCKY driver.
Donegal Cub