Dangerous carriage of a load

[geckoGT]

Today I observed someone carrying a load in a dangerous way, so dangerous it beat the guy I saw with a camira station wagon that was overloaded with house bricks and no cargo barrier.

The guy today, who was in his 70's and admitted he does it all the time, pulled into a service station on his scooter. On the floor of the scooter he had a 20L fuel jerry (plastic) with another sitting on his lap. He filled both jerry's and then rode off again. When I mentioned to him that is a very dangerous way to carry them, not to mention highly illegal, he said he does it every week and has never had a problem :

The attendant at the counter overheard the conversation and told me they have warned him numerous times but every week he does it again.

Imagine this guy in an accident, one jerry ruptures, add a spark and you have one big fireball. It is just not the risk to him that worries me, I mean if he falls off and bursts into flames, that is just natural selection at work. What worries me is if there is another vehicle involved, they could end up in a fire ball. As a paramedic I dread the idea of having to attend that accident, especially considering this is in an area I often work.

Quick phone call to the local police and his rego supplied, hope they can educate him. At least proving the offence and identity of the person should be really easy, considering it is all on the security camera :

What is the worst you have seen in crazy loads?

[Zed7fiddy]

It doesnt need to be that "Dangerous" to be dangerous, im sure as a paramedic you have come across this before, but years ago i was driving through chermside, and a little hyumdai had pulled out on a ute, and a piece of 2x4 had slid off the racks of the ute, and punched a clean hole straight through the windscreen of the hyundai, i wont go into detail here, but it wasnt pretty......

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by 84RGE

It doesnt need to be that "Dangerous" to be dangerous, im sure as a paramedic you have come across this before, but years ago i was driving through chermside, and a little hyumdai had pulled out on a ute, and a piece of 2x4 had slid off the racks of the ute, and punched a clean hole straight through the windscreen of the hyundai, i wont go into detail here, but it wasnt pretty......

I have seen the same thing, unsecured length of 3 1/2" diameter pipe through a windscreen, result was gruesome to say the least.

[Road_Warrior]

I've had some near misses while riding a motorbike, with bricks and lumps of limestone falling off trucks (on the freeway at 100km/h). That and tradies who don't know how to secure their tools/ladders/materials on the back of utes.

[ch33z1l]

Seen someone carrying a table on the roof of their little corrola hatchback looking thing. At least they had roof racks...lol

Don't know how many tailgates I have had to dodge. I always keep a safe distance behind utes and trailers for this sole reason.

[XR6_190]

I've seen a few, the most recent was just a couple of weeks ago, I was driving north along the Western Ring Road, I was in the right lane, and passing an EB Wagon towing one of those trailers with the caged up sides, but no roof, he had the trailer full of bags of clothes (you know the blue and red and white striped bags) with nothing securing it over the top of the trailer. Add to that it was a VERY windy day, so as you could imagine the second he hit the slightest bump, 2 or 3 bags came out, spraying clothes all over the Mazda 3 behind him. Luckily there was no accident involved, but it easily could have been a lot worse.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Yeah some people do the stupidest of things.

Remember that guy transporting a 3-4 burner BBQ in a bike?? It was sideways on the seat and he was sitting through the middle of it.....

Gecko... perhaps the guy was from a country where loading up scooters is the norm?? Vietnam, Laos, Thailand... if you were there you would be on the phone to police every 5 seconds...

[flappist]

The most dangerous thing I have ever seen was about 30 years ago, an idiot was driving a HR Holden with no steering wheel and a pair of vice grips on the spindle. The front bench seat had been removed and a single bucket installed but not bolted down and the seat belts had been removed.

The idiot was doing a "conversion to manual" and was half way through and got hungry so he decided to drive to KFC to grab some chook.

He was lucky. He went wide on a corner and coppers got him. If the idiot had to brake in a hurry he was dead...... Darwin at work again.

[tweeked]

Like to see them actually getting this on there.

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

Gecko... perhaps the guy was from a country where loading up scooters is the norm?? Vietnam, Laos, Thailand... if you were there you would be on the phone to police every 5 seconds...

Nice theory, except he was an old aussie bloke.

Yes there are countries like that, thankfully we do not live in one as they lose more through the road toll in one week than we do in a year.

I have a collegue that used to be a paramedic in South Africa and he used to attend a fatal smash every shift, sometimes 3 or 4. He often went to fatal smash that had 20+ dead. I do not think we want to be like that.

He was lucky. He went wide on a corner and coppers got him. If the idiot had to brake in a hurry he was dead...... Darwin at work again.

Clever guy that Mr C Darwin!

[jcxr]

OK, i will plead guilty. Once we put a tinnie, upside down, on the plumbers rack I had on my XC 302 ute. All tied down nicely, but anything over 80mph, the whole car would start lifting of the ground, light steering, loss of traction, yeeee haaa

[Ghiadude]

say no more

[Racecraft]

just keep an eye out @ your looking bunnings on a sat and Sunday to see the stuff some gooses try to take home...

best one was last weekend a guy on a scooter had 4m length of 50*75 ísh pine standing upright between his legs... crazy twit

[BlackLS]

I've always wondered how people transported poles or thick rods in the tray of utes. I'd hate to see what would happen in a rear ender, and the pole going through into the cabin...

I think the best way is and an angle from inside the tailgate over the roof.

[Airmon]

Make a game of it, try dodging chunks of Coal flying out the back of a Truck at 100km/h.

Saw a similar thing to yours flappist. I was in a bus, we pulled up at a set of lights behind an old VH commodore, the driver was probably mid 40s bloke, sitting in his seat with a seatbelt, the passenger was his child (10 at most?) sitting on a bean bag where the passenger seat would have been.
Funniest bit, Police car was sitting next to them at the lights but didn't see it. The kit had his seat belt on at least. :

[AWD Chaser]

When I was 3, my parents moved house from one side of Canberra to the other.

They had a full size wardrobe on its back ontop of an old 80's model Civic... apparently, anything over 60 and the wardrobe started flexing too much....

[Spanrz]

I get this a lot at work. Get a lot of trucks picking up machinery with too small of a trailer.
Not allowed to let machines be loaded on what we term an unsafe load. Don't care about if the truckie has driven 3 hours, too bad. Get another truck/trailer.

Though one sticks to mind, a few years ago, guy was loading a 30 ton excavator on a truck.

There was a slight incline in the loading area, but the trailer was put on the down side.
He put the truck brakes on, but not the trailer. So when the machine was half way on up the ramps of the trailer, it started to lift up the truck's (prime mover) rear wheels of the ground, because it used the trailer wheels as a pivot.

So all his braking wheels were off the ground..So no brakes holding anything. Truck-trailer and machine started sliding down hill pretty quick.
Silly boy. It wasn't until he loaded another metre or so, till the the rear wheels began to grab again. He didn't do that again.

[mrbaxr6t]

this is kindof related but kindof not - friends were moving house and hence had to take the pet cat, said cat didn't want to leave and got caught eating and got put in the car with all the windows down : really secured load huh.

[Daymoe]

Originally Posted by flappist

The most dangerous thing I have ever seen was about 30 years ago, an idiot was driving a HR Holden with no steering wheel and a pair of vice grips on the spindle. The front bench seat had been removed and a single bucket installed but not bolted down and the seat belts had been removed.

The idiot was doing a "conversion to manual" and was half way through and got hungry so he decided to drive to KFC to grab some chook.

He was lucky. He went wide on a corner and coppers got him. If the idiot had to brake in a hurry he was dead...... Darwin at work again.

Funny enough, my mate told me a story about his dad driving his car to the mechanics with a pair of vice grips and a milk crate as the seat...

[Iggypoppin']

Originally Posted by Racecraft

just keep an eye out @ your looking bunnings on a sat and Sunday to see the stuff some gooses try to take home...

best one was last weekend a guy on a scooter had 4m length of 50*75 ísh pine standing upright between his legs... crazy twit

i work in a timber yard....you do NOT want to see what we see. most tradies secure all loads correctly. then you have the "home handyman" who comes in, in his wifes charade or somesuch tiny car, and buys 30 metres of pine soldiers. about 38 by 38 and 5.4 mtrs long, and he cant cut them. so he has the back seat down, timber on an angle, 3 metres hangin out of passenger window and he refuses to change it. fortunatly for us, we don't have any legal responsibility to stop him. his mistake is his. i shuddered though when a motorcyclist purchased 5 70x35 4.8 pine lengths. and just "shouldered" them, not even taped together! thought we'd see a death from that! how does he change gears?? worst was when my work mate and i and some others where on smoko and a tradie lost half his scaffolding equipment, nearly kneecapped my workmate and smashed into one of the cars parked on our side of the street. he kept driving too! we held his stuff for a bit and made sure to grab the rego. worst thing was he was driving a very nice XR8 ute 290. and he made no apology for the accident later just signed us a cheque for the car and left.
the worst part is, people dont learn, so many repeat idiots do it time and again.

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by SLWXR6

fortunatly for us, we don't have any legal responsibility to stop him. his mistake is his.

I think you’re living in that place called Dreamland.

There’s a new set of laws called the “Chain of Responsibility”. It was originally designed for truck drivers, however, it can quite easily be adapted to hang someone like you if this clown makes a terrible mistake.

If he kills someone of the way home and you willingly let him drive out of the gate knowing (or reasonably ought to have known) that the load was not secured properly, make no mistake about it. You will go down with him.

Don’t be fooled in thinking that there’s nothing that the law can do about it. He fired the gun, you sold him the bullets. You go down too.

[dave351cid]

i have seen quite a few cars /utes on the road with long objects sticking out the windows.
also seen people driving with the bed matteress on the roof and arms out the windows to hold it, very dodgy.

not so much a dangerously loaded thing as a poorly thought out load.
last week we had a new forklift delivered to work on a low loader. that was fine exept that the ramps at the back of the low loader were too wide apart for the forklift, so they had lifted it on with another large forklift. no problem at their end. when the truck got to our depot we had no way of getting it off.
ended up getting the only tilt tray in town to reverse up to the side if the truck and drove the forklift onto the tilt tray, when the forklift got onto the back of the tilt tray it nearly lifted the front wheels off the ground , some nervouse moments .

i was just a spectator.

[GASWAGON]

Originally Posted by tweeked

Like to see them actually getting this on there.

OMG! Hope they did'nt burn the paint while giving it a handful!!!!!

[Dazza XLT]

Originally Posted by Full Noise

There’s a new set of laws called the “Chain of Responsibility”.

We're slowly but surely educating our client base. It's tough when most don't even wear shoes, let alone carry a ratchet strap.

One customer down south was told he couldn't take the full load, as his truck was not rated to that weight. He was then told that we'd deliver it in half an hour for him to save any inconvenience to him.
That wasn't good enough... So he tried to load himself. Luckily the staff member removed the keys from the forklift.

Another big hurdle... Our customers expect us to load DG's into family cars. :
I just keep telling them....I don't like Jail and I can't afford the fines should you have an accident. Next time bring the ute.
Most take it well & don't even realize they're doing something wrong, but you always get one that'll burr up.

[I_Con]

Not so much a dangerous load but still funny. Years ago in a car park a group of say 40ish yo guys turned up in an older rangie towing an obviously hired car trailer, coming to pick up another car. Anyway the car trailer had no ramps or winch so they stood around for a while scratching their heads. Then one of them got the bright idea to detach the car trailer from the rangie, move it back a couple of feet, tilt it back (so the hitch was in the air) then launch the car to be towed at the trailer. Now I have no idea what they thought was going to happen, but what did happen was the trailer was launched at the rangie with quite a bit of force and did significant damage. Needles to say the rangie owner was very unhappy. Unfortunately I didn't stick around long enough to see how they eventually (if at all) the got the car on the trailer.

[XR Martin]

Seen a few wagons/hatchbacks with lengths of timber in a trailer extending into the cabin through the rear hatch. Not sure what their plan was when it came to going around anything more than a slight curve.

Also theres a pic of a H? Wagon with a 6x4 trailer on the roof getting around the internet somewhere.

Was it wrong for me to transport a full sized wheelbarrow in the back of a 626 Hatch? I was only going 2kms....

Oh also saw a 6x4 trailer with a massive safe in it, it was so heavy the tyres were rubbing on the inner guards with smoke pouring off them.

[XR Martin]

Originally Posted by Full Noise

I think you’re living in that place called Dreamland.

There’s a new set of laws called the “Chain of Responsibility”. It was originally designed for truck drivers, however, it can quite easily be adapted to hang someone like you if this clown makes a terrible mistake.

If he kills someone of the way home and you willingly let him drive out of the gate knowing (or reasonably ought to have known) that the load was not secured properly, make no mistake about it. You will go down with him.

Don’t be fooled in thinking that there’s nothing that the law can do about it. He fired the gun, you sold him the bullets. You go down too.

But if you stop him from leaving, you can also be changed with Deprevation of Liberty.

[gthofan]

ive seen some stupid things on the road, but this one is up there. Spotted it on canturbury rd, Lilydale a few weeks ago. Old guy about 80 driving it.



Cheers
Scott

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by XR6 Martin

But if you stop him from leaving, you can also be changed with Deprevation of Liberty.

Bulls**t, you don’t stop him from leaving. You just refuse to sell him the timber unless he is prepared to transport it in a safe and legal manner.

Simple as that.

[Suvo]

Had a few hair raisers at where I work. We finished a job and the truck came to pick it up, going to drive it up the ramps and they were too wide, the tyres were only on by about 1/4 of an inch. One false move and down the bogger with around 30 grand.