Share Pics of People Hauling or Towing Something Wrong

[ultrarunner]

Harrowing just reading... I was sure this didn't end well but you stayed the course...

Around here it is mostly loaded dump trucks and concrete mixers in the hills...

A multi million dollar order of fire trucks refused because of inadequate brakes when ladened with water and parking brakes wouldn't hold meaning a fire fighter had to stay in cab just in case.

About 20 years ago I was poking around clearing brush down by the creek and found part of an ancient hood of a car.

A couple of years ago celebrating a neighbors 100th birthday happened to mention it...

He said when building circa 1955 a load of gravel base for driveway being delivered ended up in the creek with the dump truck straddling... 1948 dump truck lost brakes and I'm thinking what happened next was an early version of Disney's Mr. Toad's Wild Ride... Company said only half loads after that...

 

[RandyT]

With the traditional runaway truck ramp and sand/gravel bed, the truck has a very high chance of turning over on it's side. They told us in school (80's) that you can expect to go over on your side, and to make sure your seatbelt is on tight for "the ride" and the sudden stop at the end. I've never had to use one (truck ramp), but there was one time I did need one and there were no ramps in that area at the time. They have long since redone the pass, and added additional ramps.

Coming down Raton pass with no brakes, late 80's, by the time I knew I was in trouble, I was already past the last ramp. Long story short, half my brakes were disabled on the rig (contractor error) and vehicle maint tech didn't check them (but said he did to the NCO in charge when asked. In the post incident investigation, he admitted he just "assumed" they were fine). Military vehicle maintenance at that time was responsible for checking/adjusting brakes, as it was considered a "maintenance task", not a "drivers task". In the civilian world, most drivers check and adjust their own brakes. Maybe some company fleets still don't, dunno about that.

Normally we drove very conservatively, so didn't "need" all the brakes until we hit Raton (this trip originated in Boulder, CO). Then they weren't there. The "speed up" was gradual, I was in like 5th gear at the top (start of the grade), full Jake brake, plenty of time to figure something out (so I thought). By the time I knew I was hosed, we'd passed the last ramp. Looking back now, with 32 years of hind sight, I should have taken the last ramp, I knew "something was wrong", but I was trying to not destroy a 30 million dollar mobile satcom missile warning system (the truck). If it had "gone over" it would have destroyed the phased array antenna system on the side of the truck, and those trucks were irreplaceable, only 6 in the world (at that time).

We were instructed in driver's class that if we were ever in that situation, no brakes, runaway truck, to not allow the engine to over rev and blow itself up. Statistics from truck crashes on grades pointed to a much higher crash rate if the steering was gone. So keeping the engine alive meant you had power steering to steer the rig on the road. So we were instructed to as a last ditch choice, to slap the transmission out of gear and coast down the grade in neutral. At least we would be able to steer (some chance is better than no chance).

As I was slowly upshifting gears, with full Jake brake on, coming down the pass, I was able to keep it at a fairly mild road speed until I ran out of gears. Once the engine tach topped out in 9th gear, I did as we were instructed and slapped it to neutral. The rest of the trip down the hill was much more exciting, as we got some impressive road speeds (I'm sure I was well above 100 mph for a while). But by then, most of the big curves were behind us and I could just focus on keeping the rig on the pavement.

Made it to the bottom in one piece, still on the pavement, finally got it to roll to a stop, took miles and miles of relatively straight, flat road. Got the truck to actually come to stop by finally having the kid riding shotgun to lean out the cab door on his side and throw a set of wooden tire chocks under the truck. It took the lead convoy pickup about 15 minutes to catch up to us after we stopped, and he had a max speed of 80 mph in a gutless 6.2 L GM diesel dually. He'd been giving it all it had, lights and siren blaring, trying to "stay with us".

As an aside observation, when you're coming down a hill in a semi, at over 100 mph, riding the fast lane, flashing high beams and laying on the air horn, people tend to actually get out of your lane and let you by.

Good times.

Drove a M813 from Ft Hood to White Sands with a bad hydrovac. I was instructed if I lost brakes to pull over and use the side of truck against the rock face to stop the truck.

 

[sea2summit]

A little hard on the rig...

The sand/gravel long runs don't total the tractor... at least the one I saw well into the run.

And to get it back in action they just rake the gravel back into place. The cable method I can’t imagine is very fast to reset, union workers probably take a week then it probably has to get inspected

 

[plowhog]

Here's a pix of one where you must cross oncoming traffic to use it ...

 

[plowhog]

And a video testing a new design ...

VIDEO: Teton Pass runaway truck arrestor test

Professional performance driver Arnold Korbmacher, of Bellingham, Washington, plows a 58,000-pound sand truck into the runaway truck arrestor on Teton Pass at 60 mph to test the system on July

www.jhnewsandguide.com

 

[Yogi05]

And a video testing a new design ...

VIDEO: Teton Pass runaway truck arrestor test

Professional performance driver Arnold Korbmacher, of Bellingham, Washington, plows a 58,000-pound sand truck into the runaway truck arrestor on Teton Pass at 60 mph to test the system on July

www.jhnewsandguide.com

Sure stops fast if it can throw half the load over the cab.
That article says 2021 "new design" but the same design in my Canadian article was 2009. Just saying

 

[duramaxsky]

the grape vine is fun in a rented car except they close it at the first hint of snow.......probably a good idea....spent 14 hours in the car once because they closed it and the one motel said


no dogs

I've been one of the last trucks on it as they were closing it a few times. It's not that bad a road. We have worse up here. But California drivers suck all the time and it's worse in snow. Especially the short haul truck drivers. That's why they close it. That and heavy snow they don't have enough equipment to keep it clear.

 

[PILOON]

Locally at least, I have learned to respect long haul drivers.

But not so with short haul as much, with dump truck drivers being the worst.
More than a few times I have seen dump truck drivers acting like those Civic jockies that weave in/out at will cutting off folks at will and tail gating to force U to pull over an let them pass.
You'd think they were paid by the load and racing to get the next.

 

[nikerret]

But not so with short haul as much, with dump truck drivers being the worst.
…
You'd think they were paid by the load and racing to get the next.

A lot of them are paid by the load or more commonly, by the ton…..

 

[PILOON]

A lot of them are paid by the load or more commonly, by the ton…..

Granted that might be but it is not a license to drive recklessly.
I do know that in the case of snow removal it is by the load c/w stamped tickets.