Dump truck hits major bridge west of Toronto

[DamsInc]

I've seen a lot of pictures of dump trucks hitting concrete overpasses, but this seems to be a whole new level. The driver was charged with impaired driving.

Can any of the bridge guys offer some thoughts as to how the damaged bracing would affect the bridge?

Also, why is there no system on these trucks that limit the speeds that the truck can drive while the box is up? It seems to be a fairly common occurrence that drivers forget the box is up then manage to make it to highway speeds before plowing into something.

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/07/31/torontobound_lanes_of_qew_closed_due_to_accident.html

 

[rb1957]

see also thread "Design Loads"

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

 

[DamsInc]

Ah, missed that one, feel free to delete this thread (or if it's possible for me to delete let me know how?)

 

[JStephen]

How it happened to me:
You've got two unmarked levers sticking up through the truck floorboard. One engages the power take off, the other is the hydraulic control.
Stop the truck, shift into neutral, push the clutch in, engage the PTO, let the clutch out, and it starts dumping.
To lower the bed, disengage the PTO, move the other lever to lower the bed.
And usually at some point in there, you're shifting back into gear again to move the truck while you're dumping.
So I do all that, lock the tailgate, hop in the truck and take off. Get a quarter mile down the road, look in my mirror, and the bed is up again.
Problem was that I didn't get the PTO disengaged (only time I had driven that truck, and there's no way to actually tell by shifting if it's engaged or not.)
In my case, I didn't hit anything, so it was a major "Oops" moment, but no damage done.
One of our other drivers did that once and hit a pipe rack in a chemical plant. Bigger Oops there.
Anyway, I would bet that in 90% of these cases, they don't forget to lower the bed, it's because the bed comes back up and they're unaware of it.
Forget speed-limiting-bed-sensing technology. On equipment like that, it's a good challenge just to keep lights all working.

 

[TXStructural]

My (now ex)wife had an employee who was some distance behind a dump truck on a rural highway on Xmas Eve a few years ago when the truck decided to dump a load of small aggregate on the roadway. The employee hit the gravel, which acted like so many ball bearings, and she has never been right since. I have often wondered why that would happen and your post does a good job of explaining.

 

[drawoh]

I hit a door with a fork lift once. It was a sliding door, not fully opened. I was carefully watching the floor, making sure I did not run over people. The person I was carefully not running over was frantically pointing up at the top of the lift.

I live in the area, and I go over that bridge sometimes. I am glad I am not headed down there this weekend.

--
JHG

 

[drawoh]

An interesting thought. What would you do if you were driving a dump truck, and all the cars around you were frantically honking their horns?

--
JHG

 

[allgoodnamestaken]

Whatever I wanted. I mean, I'm driving a dump truck. What do cars matter?

 

[JStephen]

It would be harder not to notice in a trailer-dump than in a bobtail. When that happened to me, there weren't any other cars around. Anyway, the not-noticing is probably where the driving-impaired came in on the bridge case above.

 

[BAretired]

Sounds to me like the dump truck designers have a little work to do to make their vehicles safe. The driver must be aware of the position of his truck bed at all times. Of course, an intoxicated driver is another matter.



BA

 

[JStephen]

The position of the truck bed (or trailer as the case may be) is immediately obvious when you look in your mirrors. In my case, it had never occurred to me that it COULD happen, therefore I wasn't watching for it.
As far as I know, the same company doesn't normally make the truck chassis/cab/engine and the bed/trailer- those are different entities- and that complicates the coordination between the two.
Did you ever see anyone driving down the road with their turn signal on? Or, perish the thought, did you ever do that yourself? It's perfectly obvious, there's a little light flashing to indicate the situation and making the dinka-dinka noise, but you can still be oblivious to it.

 

[BAretired]

I've done that during daylight when the little flashing light was not so obvious. The dinka-dinka sound was noticeable to my passenger but not to me as I am a little hard of hearing. Perhaps a louder signal would be better although I suppose that could become annoying to some people.

On a couple of occasions, I noticed in the rear view mirror that my automobile trunk lid was flapping in the breeze while driving. I would have noticed it earlier but wasn't looking for it and in any case, the consequences were not serious.

I'm pretty sure a safety device which would signal that the truck bed is raised would be a fairly simple device to include and it might prevent some nasty accidents.

BA

 

[drawoh]

Here is another variation of this screw-up, courtesy of Fark.com.

Fuel truck driver charged with damaging covered bridge in South Whitehall

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JHG