14 October 2008

Yellow shirts require lessons in securing loads

| madocci
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My better half has had his third near death experience in 2 years as a result of yellow shirts (AKA tradespeople) not securing their load.

The first experience was on a 70km stretch of road in Belconnen, where a ladder flew off the back of a ute and landed upright about 5 metres directly in front of his motorbike. Needless to say he was happy about the ABS he had payed extra to have installed on his new beamer.

Another similar experience occurred a few months later, by which point he had learned to keep an even greater distance from any yellow shirt’s ute. This time however it was a large piece of masonite flying through the air in his direction on the tuggers parkway.

Yesterday his leisurely ride home from work on the parkway was interrupted by another ladder going flying with a piece of masonite right in front of him creating another near death experience.

This leads me to a few points:

    1. Is anyone policing the tying down of loads? If so, there obviously isn’t a great enough deterrent occurring. All the emphasis on ridiculous speed cameras etc with no emphasis on other types of road safety indicates even more that it is simply revenue raising. How about an education campaign for how to secure down loads properly?

    2. It is only a matter of time before a motor cyclist (or motorist for that matter) is killed or seriously injured from this occurrence, I just hope it’s not my husband

    3. Even if you were in your car there would be serious consequences of a ladder flying into your windscreen at 100km per hour.

So my question is, is this just a matter of “everything happens in threes” and therefore not that common for anyone other than my hubby?

I am not usually on the road at yellow shirt peak hour (~7:30am and ~4:00pm) so I don’t have a comparable base to start from. Anyone else see loads going flying on a regular basis?

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The cat did it11:37 am 15 Oct 08

If something’s fallen off, it’s most likely because the person in charge of the vehicle didn’t discharge their legal responsibility to secure their load- tradie, weekend tip-visitor, yellow shirt or whatever. Hell, people who spend a lot of their day driving around with loads of stuff should be more familiar than the rest of us with the risks involved and how to prevent them. Driving on public roads is a privilege, not a right.

tylersmayhem9:48 am 15 Oct 08

It us yellow shirts that bust our arses building infrastructure so you suit wearing pin heads can sit in your air conditioned offices and whine about how hardly done by you are

Just think about that before you categorise everyone that wears a yellow shirt !!!

Oh whatever Towie. Yes, that’s right – assume we are all “suit wearer’s” and give us s**t. Don’t martyr yourself as “building all our infrastructure” – you get paid bloody well (more than most of us suit wearer’s) to do your job.

You choose to do your type of job, people like me choose to do my type of job. I’d never look down my nose at a tradie because of the work they do, but I cop s**t (and higher quotes) from tradies all the time because they see me wearing a suit. Wake up sunshine – earn your money and stop spouting off s**t and generalising people.

If you want to continue on your mindless and senseless crap about infrastructure, first consider that WE pay YOUR wage to build the infrastructure.

It us yellow shirts that bust our arses building infrastructure so you suit wearing pin heads can sit in your air conditioned offices and whine about how hardly done by you are

Tradies work at what they do for a combination of the following,

they like the work,

or

they need money (and that is the preferred way for them to earn it)

every other worker in the country is exactly the same.

While it is possible that tradies actually have a better attitude toward securing there loads then the general public, the fact that they make up a visible presence on the road has made them the focus of this thread. I personally am amazed at the differences in wage earned between low skill office jobs and similar skill level labour related jobs, but that is a subject for another thread.

In a previous life I was driving a bus down the F3 north of Sydney with a load of extremely pithed one day cricket fans and was overtaken by a wheel complete with tyre and hub that had come loose from a tradies trailer. Sure sobered that group up and made my trip a bit easier. Also taught me to always give tradies of any type an extremely wide berth.

canberra towie said :

Just think about that before you categorise everyone that wears a yellow shirt !!!

What a load of crap, you’re all the same. There’s a reason you wear a yellow shirt and that’s because you’re all yellow bellies, gutless pieces that couldn’t be bothered even tying down a load.

Try being in the car behind following when branches or concrete bits fall out of your polluting trucks and onto the vehicle behind!

🙂

Well…. that’s what I would say if I hated you guys… but actually I don’t… it’s all been said now so leave the poor hard-working yellowies alone will ya 😉

canberra towie10:43 pm 14 Oct 08

It us yellow shirts that bust our arses building infrastructure so you suit wearing pin heads can sit in your air conditioned offices and whine about how hardly done by you are

Just think about that before you categorise everyone that wears a yellow shirt !!!

Saw (from behind) a large bit of carpet blow off a ute a week back. They never noticed. I was a fair way back so just went around it, it was a yucky looking bit and probably smelly too.

There’s no road offences now, just going faster than what it says on the sign. That’s it.

most tradesmen actually do care about securing their gear down. a lot of tradies spend all day driving around and if most tradies didnt care about securing loads then you would see endless amounts of crap on the side of the road every day, not to mention accidents galore everyday. sure it happens from time to time but i also see a hell of lot of non tradies loosing crap off their trailers, boots, roofs etc. infact i see more crap flying off their vehicles than tradies.
drivers should be leaving enough distance to be able to stop if an emergency happens, yeah i know thats not always practicle and ive been stung by not leaving enough room. i accept it’s just as much my fault when for example i hit something thats more than likely fallen off someones car and its laying in the middle of the road. like i said before, roads are not safe places and to expect them to be is only gonna end in tears.

astrojax said :

encouragement to maintain an appropriate gap to the vehicle in front

cross-wind.

A couple of years ago we hit some scaffolding clamps near the airport. Two new tyres ($560 thanks very much). No way of finding out who caused it. If it had flown up and hit a windscreen it probably would have killed whoever was in the way. Most tradies these days just seem to throw everything in the back and off they go. If something falls off they won’t have a clue until they go looking for it at the jobsite. Happens far too often.

isnt it also a fact that men who ride bmws sitt down to pee?

more proof that it is actually dangerous on the roads, who woulda thought hey..

A friend of mine was pulled over and fined when the truck he was driving (full of chopped up buts of tree) lost a quite small branch off the back. But I think that is because they take industrial* situations more seriously then the average grandad on his way to mugga lane on a Sunday arvo.

* – industrial does not include plumbers utes obviously.

I agree, a blown load can be dangerous for all involved.
Gold!

I had a wheelbarrow exit the back of a tradies ute on Majura Rd, whilst I was riding my motorbike to work.

Gave me a hell of a fright, I can tell you. I caught up with the bloke and he was a) obvlivious that it happened and b) quite apologetic. It’s a pity that if it had of got me, a) would have meant he wouldn’t have been b).

Holden Caulfield5:00 pm 14 Oct 08

RandomPoster said :

…A few months back my wife encountered a kitchen sink on the parkway…

So, did she stop and do the dishes?

AG Canberra said :

…I hit a sheep once – just before I hit it the woolly thing, she had beeen happily travelling in a tarp covered cage on the back of ute….The door sprung open and out she fell…

Did the troopers come and get you for killing the jumbuck?

Woody Mann-Caruso4:53 pm 14 Oct 08

maintain an appropriate gap to the vehicle in front

Agree, but doesn’t help when the trailer comes from behind you (or crosses into traffic heading the other way!)

I once saw a large piece of concrete fly out of the back of a cement truck (the gutter part that the cement pours down) whilst it was travelling around the roundabout on the Barton Highway.
The driver didn’t seem to notice it but the lady sitting in the car it somehow missed certainly did.

I agree, a blown load can be dangerous for all involved.

We once had to dodge a fridge bouncing down the freeway having fallen off the back of a poorly secured ute. Once the terror had subsided we all agreed it was actually very funny.

tylersmayhem4:39 pm 14 Oct 08

Yes, Astro is right, if you keep 5 car lengths between you and the car in front, then a rampaging trailer poses no risk 😛

abs isn’t standard on new bmw’s?? ffs…

this is far too typical, though (on topic) but says much for the encouragement to maintain an appropriate gap to the vehicle in front. tailgaters getting what’s coming, eh? (let’s hope, madocci, things do come in threes and mr madocci stays upright a while longer yet!)

Yes they do happen often. Yes they can be and are fatal, a friend of mines uncle was killed when a piece of rubble fell from a tip truck and went through his windscreen.

Yes it does get policed but not often. Years ago I rode my bike to a friends house and he droped me home with the bike in his trailer. The bike was not tied into the trailer (yes I admit it was stupid) and a passing Mr Plod stopped us and gave us a large fine, I think about $600 which back in the day was a lot.

About 6 months ago I went to the Mitchell tip and there were inspectors checking trailer rego and that loads were secured. I saw them issue a few fines.

I hit a sheep once – just before I hit it the woolly thing, she had beeen happily travelling in a tarp covered cage on the back of ute….The door sprung open and out she fell. Her mates looked on in horror – as I did when I smacked into her and turned her into lamb roast…..

Yep securing a load is nothing to be taken lightly – problem is that “she’ll be right” seems to overide basic common sense.

When you come up with a design for an automatic badly-secured-load-detecting camera, let us know.

Woody Mann-Caruso3:16 pm 14 Oct 08

Igglepiggle

My son totally loves you, man.

Woody Mann-Caruso said :

To the gent in the green Landrover who lost his matching green trailer at the top of Erindale Drive on the weekend – the whole trailer, bouncing six feet in the air, then careening back and forth over three lanes before finally coming to rest on the traffic island – you’re very, very lucky. A few seconds either way and things would have been very different.

Sweet jesus. The fact that no one was hurt is unbelievable.

About 15 years ago my mum hit a couch on the parkway. It had fallen off a truck who obviously didn’t notice and kept going. Destroyed the front of our car, but it made quite the story for me at school the next day…

I was the second car behind a ute losing several long pieces of timber at 90km/hr on William Hovell Drive northbound about 10am this morning. Some more thought in securing them before take off would have saved a few people a “life flashing before your eyes” moment

I was under the impression that you could be fined for having an uncovered and loose load as it presents an obvious danger to others on the road. I recommend taking down their details and reporting it to the Police or to the company in question.

Woody Mann-Caruso1:46 pm 14 Oct 08

To the gent in the green Landrover who lost his matching green trailer at the top of Erindale Drive on the weekend – the whole trailer, bouncing six feet in the air, then careening back and forth over three lanes before finally coming to rest on the traffic island – you’re very, very lucky. A few seconds either way and things would have been very different.

It’s good to hear your man wasn’t hurt in those incidents.

1. Is anyone policing the tying down of loads? If so, there obviously isn’t a great enough deterrent occurring. All the emphasis on ridiculous speed cameras etc with no emphasis on other types of road safety indicates even more that it is simply revenue raising. How about an education campaign for how to secure down loads properly?

You’re assuming there’s money to be made in the policing of loads being tied down, and there’s not. Politically, anyone who talked about cracking down on tradies not securing their utes could probably be laughed out of office, and the coppers aren’t going to worry about it. Speed cameras are easy, they don’t discriminate (except against speeders), and more important, they bring in free money.

RandomPoster12:46 pm 14 Oct 08

Something needs to be done to improve the situation. A few months back my wife encountered a kitchen sink on the parkway. Not good at the best of times, but significantly worse at peak times.

That’s some scary stuff. I never even thought of something like that when I was riding. Then again I never road behind a ute.

I can’t think of anything that would preclude that from being an act of negligence, however I haven’t looked into the ACT situation in a very very long time.

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