YOUR Family travels the highway with this moron

[catalinaflyer]

I delivered an oversize load to Glasgow, MT yesterday and my dispatch had me go about 200 miles from there to sit for the weekend. It was dark when I backed in last night and I didn't notice what the flat-bed next to me was hauling. Well this morning I was sitting here with my cab curtains closed except for a small gap at the drivers side window to allow the smoke to get out. While talking on the phone with my wife there was some movement in my mirror and although it was nothing I was horrified to see what this guy had on his trailer. Not what it was but how he had painstakingly secured it. He has 5 of these pallets on his trailer and each one is maked at 6440# +/- 200# and he has only three 4" straps on the entire load. See the pictures below. Now at a 6400# average thats 32,000# held by straps with a total WLL of 12,000# and nothing, absolutley nothing to stop them from sliding forward if he has to dynamite the brakes. There's not even edge protecters protecting the straps from the steel corners.

Thank the lord I am stuck here for the weekend and am not traveling the highways with this moron. And thankfully my family is 800 miles away and won't be sitting in the right lane at a backup when this lazy SOB dynamites his brakes next to them and one of these 6400# pallets comes off smashing the poor helpless wife and kids in the car next to him.

I took several pictures but am only posting these two as the others show the company name and unit numbers. I'm torn between minding my own business and calling and reporting him to his safety department. He has spent better than 45 minutes cleaning his windows and morrors but never walked back past the cab doors on his truck before pulling out. Never looked at a tire (other than the steer's he stepped on to clean the windshield), never checked the straps because he could tell they were tight from his now clean mirrors and never checked a single light on the trailer, that's what the CB is for, someone can tell him if they're not working.It's not like he's incapable, he looked to be my age, mid 40's and in good physical shape but apparently too f-----g lazy to throw a few chains or more straps.

[Windwalker]

If those are individual pieces on each pallet, I can see far more than just that wrong with them. If he dynomites those brakes, he could even be suicidal...

Of course, he may only be going 10 or 20 miles down the road with them... Local drivers get away a whole lot easier... They don't have to cross any state scales...

[catalinaflyer]

Those are individual pieces on each pallet which makes each one somewhere around 2,000#. There is one metal band around each group of three and the pallet. I doubt he's going somewhere close to where I'm at, those are raw casting for rail car suspentions. Where I'm sitting at is 100 miles from nowhere and my guess would be he's headed to PACAR in the northwest where they machine them and use them in building rail cars but I could be wrong. Local driver or not he left the parking lot here and got on the interstate headed west. That's the interstate that families are traveling on.

[Rev.Vassago]

Those things aren't secured at all, from what it looks like. If he hit the brakes, he'd have a bunch of giant metal missiles.

[Orangetxguy]

Well........From the first post.....at least his windows were clean.




200 miles south of Glasgow? Your in Helena??

[Creek Jackson]

Well........From the first post.....at least his windows were clean.




200 miles south of Glasgow? Your in Helena??

200 miles from Glasgow won't get you to Helena. About 300 would get you to Billings. 200 would get you close to Miles City. He did say interstate.

Just Sayin'

[catalinaflyer]

I didn't say south .................. I'm sitting in the wonderful city of Beach, ND

[catalinaflyer]

Those things aren't secured at all, from what it looks like. If he hit the brakes, he'd have a bunch of giant metal missiles.

I took the opportunity to look it over real close while out on my trailer doing a little house cleaning. I didn't take my camera out with me, that would have been a little to obvious. There were no blocks in the nail strip in front of the pallets or anything. The ones on the back were even strapped with more hanging out the front than the back so the strap was on the down slope of them. He did have both of his tarps strapped to the trailer behind the load with 2 - 4" straps, guess he was more worried about those than the load. Maybe he's new to flatbedding and just came from a reefer and thought his tarp securement would act like load locks.

While typing this another load of the same thing on a different carrier has just pulled through, he has 3 straps across each bunch with corner protectors and has his dunnage double stacked in front of the first ones with a 3/8 chain and ratchet binder acting as a bulk head. Looking at it closer in addition to the straps he has a chain doubled back around the front of each group as well. If he rolls his truck or hits a bridge head on that load ain't going nowhere.

So figuring 3/8" transport grade 70 chains and his straps he has a WLL of 55,800# for his entire load, a darn sight more than the 12,000# that left here. Even if his chains are 5/16" non rated his WLL is still 41,700#, well more than the total weight of the load and waaay more than required by the DOT.

[catalinaflyer]

Yes I'm bored, there's not much going on in Beach, ND. I just ordered a Honda EU2000i generator and a View Cube sattelite system but right now I have 1 tv station that's fuzzy as hell, nothing on Sirius and with Flying J's wonderful limits I would blow my entire month's allotment in one day trying to watch HULU. I have a cellular card for the internet but I can't get a connection anywhere in North Dakota or Eastern Montana with it. Guess Cellular One and T-Mobile can't agree on some things.

[Rev.Vassago]

Everyone I've talked to who has the VuQube loves it.

[allan5oh]

They don't look like they're centered either.

You should call the DOT. Honestly.

[Windwalker]

I always had a whole stack of 4 X 4's with me. A load like that would have had 2 or 3 chained down in front and in back of each row of pallets, and more than one strap across. The straps are holding tension on the pieces at the outside edges, but those in the middle have no tension on them at all. With no kind of blocking, he may not have to hit the brakes to lose one or more... That'll chip the ice off the road.

He hits the brakes, he'll have half a dozen knocking on the back of his sleeper, asking to lie down in far softer surroundings.

[possum]

That cats got a death wish. If he jams the breaks on of those things would run through the cab with no trouble at all.

[marcel27208]

Everyone I've talked to who has the VuQube loves it.

ive seen the vuqube for sale at trucks stop...what do you do buy the vuqube and subscribe to the monthly service??? simple as this??

[Rev.Vassago]

ive seen the vuqube for sale at trucks stop...what do you do buy the vuqube and subscribe to the monthly service??? simple as this??

The VuQube is just a satellite dish. You still have to subscribe to a regular dish network system. The VuQube eliminates the need for mounting and setting up a dish when you stop - it makes it all automatic. I've heard it's much easier to find a good signal as well.

[Phantom433a]

Catalina....I would call his company as well as DOT. The moron needs to be taught how to secure loads properly.

[catalinaflyer]

Catalina....I would call his company as well as DOT. The moron needs to be taught how to secure loads properly.

I thought about trying to fihure out a way to offer some advice on how to secure it. After watching his pre-trip and the fact he never walked past the cab doors this morning I decided that it wasn't a lack of knowledge but rather complete selfishness and disregard for laws and his own safety let alone the safety of the public traveling on the highway with him.

I did contact his company and e-mailed the pictures of the load to them but did not tell them the truck number. There was no one there in safety today but the weekend dispatcher, who BTW sounded like a former driver was mortified when he got them. He said that is not the company policy and they have very specific rules for that exact load. Even told me thy haul it several times a week, where they pick it up at and where it goes. Sounds like there are several of thier trucks carrying it today. He assured me that I will be hearing from the safety director first thing Monday morning. I don't want to get someone fired, that's not my position and as such I used photoshop to blur the truck number, trailer number and VIN# so they couldn't identify which drive it was. I wouldn't tell him where it was at but the digital signature on the picture will give them the date and time. And just in case they have an IT wiz, I sent it through my computer at home using my go-to-my pc subscription so they couldn't nail down where I was sitting. I'm hoping they will have a blanket threat of termination over this and the driver who did it will be scared into doing the right thing. Lord knows I have skated a time or two on securement, most noteably on articulated equipment. It's almost impossible to find an older tractor or front end loader that still has the articulation lock in place and even if they do they are either rusted or painted into a permanent position. In that case your supposed to have two chains securing the center of the machine but I have skipped that before. About three weeks ago however I rolled onto the Moorehead, MN scales with an older JD loader and had not locked or chained it (in the middle, I had 4 X 1/2 chains on the corners). I was only going 52 miles with it and even left it running. The DOT officer came out and got my permit then headed back and the only thing he looked at was the articulation lock. He made me pull off to the side and install it but he could have wrote me a pretty large ticket for improper load securement. I have now installed two 5/16" chains 6' long with oversized wrecker hooks and binders in the middle well of my trailer and it takes lass the 1 minute to throw them on the middle of the machine and over to the side rail. No more threats of tickets.

[catalinaflyer]

Everyone I've talked to who has the VuQube loves it.

I have looked at several different setups. The dish mounted on the pole on the mirror is the cheepest and it looks that way to. I already have enough crap out there with my antennas, oversize load mirrors, sattelite radio, forward beacons etc. I have talked to three guys with the qube and they absolutely love it. Two of them had the truck model mounted on the grab rail on the back of the bunk which is the route I went and one had the portable he just sat out on top of his trailer. I didn't care for that option as it wouldn't take long for it to have a new owner or be scattered all over the freeway when I forgot it. I already have dish network at home and can add an additional receiver. I just have to tell them I'm hooking it into my existing system because they wont allow it to be portable. If I tell them I'm going to use it in the truck I have to get a seperate subscription which I think is crap but that's thier rules and I love the programming at home. I can access my home entertainment system from here with go-to-my pc but I can only watch what's stored on the hard drive or what one of the systems is tuned to, I cannot change channels and the quility is poor to very poor with a bunch of stuttering. Not to mention using all of my monthly bandwidth with Flying J in just one evening of TV watching.

[catalinaflyer]

The VuQube is just a satellite dish. You still have to subscribe to a regular dish network system. The VuQube eliminates the need for mounting and setting up a dish when you stop - it makes it all automatic. I've heard it's much easier to find a good signal as well.

BTW, there are three options, Manual Remote, Automatic Stationary and In Motion. I chose the $646 Manual Remote. I will have to tune it but I will be able to do it from the comfort of the bunk and not having to hang out the window and jack with it while pulling some sort of acrobatic move to see the TV and tell if it's tuned or not.

[Rev.Vassago]

BTW, there are three options, Manual Remote, Automatic Stationary and In Motion. I chose the $646 Manual Remote. I will have to tune it but I will be able to do it from the comfort of the bunk and not having to hang out the window and jack with it while pulling some sort of acrobatic move to see the TV and tell if it's tuned or not.

That 360 degree tuning ability is friggin cool. Everyone I've seen who has it mounts it at the rear center top of their sleeper on an "L" shaped bracket.