Share Pics of People Hauling or Towing Something Wrong

[bcp]

The car driver was "Florida woman."

Florida woman’s car sent flying over tow truck, video shows

It looks like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster. A sedan drives up the ramp of a flatbed tow truck and rockets into the air on a Georgia highway. And the whole crash is caught on video by an off…

www.orlandosentinel.com

Bruce

 

[ning]

Most of the news reports online say the truck's emergency lights were on.

Here's one:

https://kfor.com/news/dont-miss/video-car-launches-over-tow-truck-in-georgia/

The tow truck, described as a roll-back wrecker, was parked in the left lane with its emergency lights activated, the accident report said.

Bruce

It'll be interesting to find out if there were actually lights visible from behind - I don't see lights on top of the cab, and I can't tell in the video if there were lights at the top of the roll-back - it definitely doesn't look like it, and any "emergency lights" that may be active definitely aren't obvious in the video which leads me to believe that the "emergency lights" are just the normal turn signal blinkers, which probably aren't even visible from behind when the rollback is down.

There's also no flares, cones or warning triangles visible in the video.

Overall a really bad situation. The driver of the launched car obviously should've been paying closer attention, but there's little expectation in any of us that a truck will be parked in the fast lane and considering the roll-back was already down, it had been there long enough for someone to set out flares.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

Yep.. No lights, no cones, no warnings.

No cones but according to the accident report, the truck lights were on to the rear. As fast as she was going any cones would have only caused her to look up as she hit the ramp.

 

[aczlan]

Yep.. No lights, no cones, no warnings.

What's missing, was flashing lights on the truck.

That we can see from the officers body cam.
Most of the news stories said that the truck had lights on, I would bet that one of 3 things caused that appearance:

1. You could not see them on camera due to the angle (most lights used in a modern bar like that are either a 40° or 60° light spread, outside of that range you won't see them very strongly)
2. The way that the camera is optimized (I would assume body camera would be set up to record most accurately that distances of up to 20 ft, it may or may not pickup detail). Note how the strobes in the back window of the police car at the beginning of the video for somewhat difficult to see and they were only a few feet away from the camera versus on the other side of the median.
3. The rollback had the rear light in "arrowstick" or "directional" mode where the lights repeatedly go from left to right (or vis versa) to signal cars to go around in that direction. That will generally shut off the other lights and just run the ones in the back, the front and side ones are not needed in that case because there is no traffic coming from that direction.

Here's an example of a light bar with that mode: Signal Vehicle Products Amber 50
Here is a strobes and more video showing how they can individually program the different heads and pick which one turns on at what time:

Aaron Z

 

[aczlan]

It'll be interesting to find out if there were actually lights visible from behind - I don't see lights on top of the cab, and I can't tell in the video if there were lights at the top of the roll-back - it definitely doesn't look like it, and any "emergency lights" that may be active definitely aren't obvious in the video which leads me to believe that the "emergency lights" are just the normal turn signal blinkers, which probably aren't even visible from behind when the rollback is down.

There's also no flares, cones or warning triangles visible in the video.

Overall a really bad situation. The driver of the launched car obviously should've been paying closer attention, but there's little expectation in any of us that a truck will be parked in the fast lane and considering the roll-back was already down, it had been there long enough for someone to set out flares.

My guess would be that it the truck only had rear strobes on, those are in the light bar which was mounted on top of the headache rack at the front of the bed.
Most rollbacks put their light bars in that location instead of on the cab roof because it is much easier to see when the bed is down and they're loading a vehicle.

Aaron Z

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

My guess would be that it the truck only had rear strobes on, those are in the light bar which was mounted on top of the headache rack at the front of the bed.
Most rollbacks put their light bars in that location instead of on the cab roof because it is much easier to see when the bed is down and they're loading a vehicle.

Aaron Z

You can see the light bar mounted on the deck headache rack being taken out by the car before she hits the back of the cab

 

[masseyrider]

Never matters in to the Duke boys. They just jump and keep going.
Good old General Lee and the Southern yell.
YEE HAW!

 

[BigBlue1]

Is that why they do that? It drives me nuts. They come up so that their right front corner is by my left wheel and ride there for miles... until I overtake a slower vehicle. At that point they will s-l-o-w-l-y speed up just enough to block me from pulling out.

That speed-matching thing is some type of odd but fairly common psychological condition. Drivers on multi-lane roads are OK going faster until they come upon someone in the right lane. Then they either match their speed or slow down to just barely faster. I've been driving for decades and I have not yet figured out the rationale. But I'm pretty certain most of the time it is subconcious for them. Those same folks are also ALWAYS oblivious to other cars on the road (behind them) and/or have zero care or respect to not impact others. Drives me nuts whether I'm the one behind them or in the right lane that they latch onto. 30 to 40% of drivers on the road really should not be allowed behind the wheel.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

That speed-matching thing is some type of odd but fairly common psychological condition. Drivers on multi-lane roads are OK going faster until they come upon someone in the right lane. Then they either match their speed or slow down to just barely faster. I've been driving for decades and I have not yet figured out the rationale. But I'm pretty certain most of the time it is subconcious for them. Those same folks are also ALWAYS oblivious to other cars on the road (behind them) and/or have zero care or respect to not impact others. Drives me nuts whether I'm the one behind them or in the right lane that they latch onto. 30 to 40% of drivers on the road really should not be allowed behind the wheel.

Where I live it's all two-lane roads with the occasional third passing lane for uphill traffic. Follow a vehicle on the flats that's doing 55-58 mph, until they get to the 3rd lane, then they accelerate to 65. Since I am pulling a trailer, I can't accelerate fast enough to pass them. But when the 3rd lane ends, it's back to 55 again.

 

[Rustyiron]

I did put a flag on it.