# Truck Driver's Screwups



## jmic (Dec 10, 2005)

4 come to mind to me.

1 driver, 2 screw ups then down the road!
A. went in early one morning hooked up to 20 ton tag a long and didn't lock the pintle hitch. Went down rt 7 hit a small bump, trailer came off ( empty ) crossed into other oncoming lane. Driver coming the other way saw it and vered off the road onto the front lawn of a commercial bldg., trailer decided to take same path and t- boned his car (totaled it )
B. 3 months later takes Lull Lift to Falls Village to unload log house package off of trailer. On the way back ( traveling to fast for road conditions ) on Rt. 7 before Cornwall Bridge where 7 takes a series of twists and bends ( Nick I'm sure you've been by this area hundred times ) the trailor rolls with Lull, Lull comes free of chains skids through guard rails and the only thing that saved it from going down about 50' into the river is the rear wheel caught the steel cable from the guard rails.

Another Driver dumps a load of driveway base, probably drives 75' out of the driveway, turns down the Lakeroad about 500' with body all the way up:w00t: caught a guide wire going across the road from one pole to another, took down both poles along with transformer into stream, oil, pcb's or whatever and DEP

The girl ( the best driver I ever had ) drove for about 7 yrs, calls me one am and tells me she started the truck to warm up and went to the powder rm. Air operated pto body raised in the shop cracked (4) 40' trusses, tokk out some lighting.

Go ahead and ask me if I miss owning trucks.:laughing: I'm sure you guys must have some stories similar to these.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Wow, you have some bad luck. We never had anything major like that happen.


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## firemike (Dec 11, 2005)

Fortunately mine aren't as bad as jmic's---

Other than the ones that forget to unlock the gate before dumping:

Had one guy load the truck with the roll-up tarp still covering the box, then tried to dump it.

Had another load a Case 450 on the trailer, forgot to chain it down. Going down the road, a local cop noticed the dozer bouncing around the trailer as he went by and pulled him over to let him know. Local cops are really cool, he even helped him chain it down. Could have been a major disaster though. 

These incidents helped me decide to downsize - my luck with help was running out.


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## denick (Feb 13, 2006)

1976 I load our brand new 941B tracked loader on our lowbed all the way up against the neck with one 5/8" chain "no binder" around bucket up against the neck. Head out going down Weed Hill in Stamford CT and turn left. Feel the tractor torque to the right. Look back and there is the machine half on and half off the trailer. Looking it over its lodged on there. I am on a steep curve so I decide to crawl down to bottom where it's flat. I saw a friend of the families working with his backhoe down the other street. He came up and we lifted it back up by lifting and pushing on the ROPS. Only 2 gouges on the ROPS.

1979 My partner takes tractor and lowbed to move a 955L tracked loader for a contractor. The guy is in his mid 70's and a real hard old character. He give's Phil a hard time not waste time chaining it down he's only going 2 miles. They go around a bend on a main road in Greenwich, CT and he feel's a good jerk on the trailer. All of a sudden the old guy pulls along side honking and waving. He looks back, No machine.
Sitting on the side of the road back on the bend just like someone parked it there sits the machine. Just 6" into the asphalt.

1998 Haul a load of 4 very large boulder slabs to a job. Had them loaded for them to slide right out of the body. Start to put the body up and the load starts to move and in 1 second I'm looking almost straight up at the sky. And there I stay. 8' in the air. No one around no machine on job. Load wedged in body. A very long time jerking that load back a forth very gingerly. Backing it into a tree to push the load in, then jerk it back. The ride down was a lot worse than the ride up.

Nick


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## firemike (Dec 11, 2005)

> The ride down was a lot worse than the ride up.


$35 for a ride like that at Cedar Point--


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

A previous boss took an old Mack DM out one morning that had the dump body pto engaged. He was OK 'til he got on I95 and came to the first overhead sign at which point he clipped the sign lighting and tore up the 'bill' on the dump body.


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

Had a driver hauling 'round trips from the quarry to me. The 25 minute trip kept getting longer and longer until it was taking almost an hour. I hopped in my truck and drove over to the quarry to find the truck parked outside the entrance. I walked up to the passenger door and yanked it open to find the driver leaning on the seat bangin' H in his arm.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

PipeGuy said:


> Had a driver hauling 'round trips from the quarry to me. The 25 minute trip kept getting longer and longer until it was taking almost an hour. I hopped in my truck and drove over to the quarry to find the truck parked outside the entrance. I walked up to the passenger door and yanked it open to find the driver leaning on the seat bangin' H in his arm.



Screw that crap, I would have kicked his ass on the spot :furious:


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

i'm fully aware i'm a hick from south dakota...but wtf is banging H into his arm mean?


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Heroin


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## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

aaaaaaaah....he and i'd make a visit to the emergency room. to have my foot pulled outta his arse


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## Eric K (Nov 24, 2005)

Very serious deal now around here is everyone triple checking to make sure their trailers are hooked up properly. A few weeks ago a landscaper was hauling a tree chipper (found to be stolen years before) had broke loose from the truck and slammed into a car carrying a father and his triplet sons/daughter. I think they were about 4 yrs old. The father and 2 sons died and 1 son is still in critical condition. SO everyone make sure to ALWAYS double check the safety mechs on what you tow.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/8770329/detail.html


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

rino1494 said:


> Screw that crap, I would have kicked his ass on the spot :furious:


Yeah well, I was a 185# 26 year old and he was a 105# 55+ year old. I called the office and let the GM deal with it.


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## IHI (Dec 25, 2004)

I'll admit a few stupidities of mine.

At the shop I use to run they started getting in implement auction equpiment so our back lot was litered with supposedly "organized" rows of junk tractors and farm equpiment. Had to replace a mirror on one of the big rigs but we were out of stock and had to order it (was a fix up for a new driver we had hired going out in a few days) all my guys were busy so I took a mental scan of the back lot since i had to back the rig and trailer out and thought I memorized my path since I had no way of seeing behind me. Backing up reeeeal slow snaking it around just as I planed, got ready to feather the clutch back out and truck did'nt move, gave it a lil more throttle and heard a crunch noise..wtf?? went to open my door and it was wedged shut, looked out the window and there was a step deck parked in the lot I had run into with the tractor being turned and it caught and qrapped the exhaust right into the door. Luckily it was only a $90 fix and suprisingly no paint damage.

We were building a garage for a buddy (still ran the OTR shop) so decided I was'nt going to huff all those sheets of ply and shingles up to the trusses, told them I'd be back with a big fork truck. It was one of the JD with the big tractor front tires, hooked the goose neck upto the 1T flat bed dodge and proceeded to try and drive up the ramps...next thing I know I'm chacing the trailer and truck across the downhill parking lot....gooseneck I grabbed did'nt have the legs on the ramps so soon as the weight was on it, the entire rear of the truck was off the ground and away we went:w00t: backed off in time to save any damages for another day. Everybody on site got a kcik of out me pulling up with a brand new petey and RGN trlr and this forktruck....got alot of crap for that one, but nobody was complainin as soon as the plywood and shingles were hoisted up:thumbup:


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## start2finish (Mar 20, 2006)

*Train hit my tractor trailer*

my biggest bad day, some of you have seen this one, the guy driving was test driving the truck hauling from his job.


thread name train wreck


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## denick (Feb 13, 2006)

This wasn't a screw up but it sure was not nice. I wasn't driving that day. Driver didn't get hurt. Sure was a beautiful rig.

Nick


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## TMatt142 (Apr 28, 2006)

When i was up in MN I operated a 710 backhoe for the company. From time to time the loboy would come to take me off to another job or a new one. Before I was getting the new machines, one time "Becker" our loboy driver pulls up to the jobsite, waves me over and as usual, detatches from the trailer, I drive up and help chain down as usual. Now this particular machine was older, and well....loose. So I tape up the stack, and start chaining it down with him. He puts his two chains on each side of the tractor at the back, by the outriggers and starts walking back to the truck. I asked him, don't you ever chain down the back bucket? Na, he says....it never swings out. FAMOUS LAST WORDS!!! As we were driving down a county road, (I always followed) around a turn...there goes the boom.....and there went several mail boxes, some brick, some wood.....all destroyed!!! Needless to say, we pulled over and threw a chain across the boom.


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## phinsher (Oct 27, 2005)

well you guys have been through some crazy stuff, but here's a few petty things this painter went through when i worked at a local nursery when i was fresh out of high school.

First day on the job they put me on some kinda bulldozer. My supervisor pulls up and says "you know how to run one of these?" 
"Uh, yeah sure, how do ya get it started?"
he shows me the ropes and away i go. Pulling small bushes and trees from a large field. About 2 hours later (i'm in the zone now) he pulls to the edge of the field and waves me in. Hmmmmm never tried to stop this thing yet! I can only describe it as "totally losing it" I couldn't get that thing stopped to save my life. When it did finally stop one of the tracks was 1/2" from my supervisors bumper  

Next day, i'm driving a small dump truck full of plants. They motion me to pull into a small road between 2 fields. People unload the plants and motion me to pull away. I'm driving down the dirt road, then it changes to a road where the weeds are really tall. little did I know under the weeds were $8000 worth of plants perfectly spaced so the tires ran over both rows:w00t: 

once i became a painter I got to watch other guys mess up! Small dump truck hooks up to one of those big towable air compressors. Drives up the steep driveway, when he hit the brakes the compressor came unhooked and rolled about 75 yards down hill, straight into the entry of the house. Not a pretty picture.


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## widco (Jan 16, 2004)

---


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## Duff (Apr 4, 2006)

Nick,
I'd be interested to hear how that rig rolled onto its side?
Duff


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## jmic (Dec 10, 2005)

denick said:


> This wasn't a screw up but it sure was not nice. I wasn't driving that day. Driver didn't get hurt. Sure was a beautiful rig.
> 
> Nick


OUCH, Look at you Nick posting pics:thumbsup: way to go! Nice looking Broc though, still have it?


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## denick (Feb 13, 2006)

Duff,

We were redoing an estate in Greenwich CT 22-23 years ago. We were hauling gravel from a pit about 50 miles north in Dover NY. The truck would leave about 5:30 AM for the first load. You could load up the early load, we'd haul 30 CY of bankrun gravel ( heavy). A clear, cold morning in Feb. the when the driver leaves. He gets to the pit and there's 3" of snow. He gets loaded and comes down to the estate. he's dumping along the roadway on nice flat ground. I see him come in and tell him to go get another load. I go down to the on site office and the phone is ringing. I answer the phone and its the driver gasping for breath. "The truck and trailer went over" I go up to the site. There's the truck like in the picture. We line up four machines and chain the truck and trailer to them. We shovel out the trailer and find a frozen block of gravel and snow of about four yards stuck to the floor right in front of the tailgate. The loader operator must have scraped up a bucket snow with the gravel in the first bucket and it froze to the floor. Pulled the whole rig up pretty smoothly. $7,000.00 of damage to the trailer $2,400.00 to the truck.

Joe, sold the truck 3 years later. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!


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