This happens more than you would think. I suspect that more often than not they're not driving away with the bed up. Rather at some point in transit, they bump the wrong lever and it begins to raise on its own.
Like a1abdj said: Happens more often that you would believe. There was one on TV just a few years ago involving a dumptruck with a raised bed and some power lines. Like this:
Only the one I recall: The truck didn't tip over. Instead it was tangled in the power lines and he was stuck in the truck until the power company could de-energize them.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
I was behind one that took out a couple of power lines just this past winter. Fortunately it was very early in the morning (no traffic) on a divided highway (only one direction affected) and there were only a couple of lines which I was able to drive around while he pulled over feeling like an idiot.
-Rob
I predict that there will be many suggestions and statements about the law made here, and some of them will be spectacularly wrong. - jhe888
A=A
Posts: 16336 | Location: Maryland, AA Co. | Registered: March 16, 2006
It is quite common. Two incidents past six months of dump trucks taking out power lines and of course the poles as well.
Still not as frequent as rocks to the windshield. The laws requiring loads to be covered are generally not enforced in my locale. The license plates are generally obscured with mud, which makes it even more difficult to control this situation.
Posts: 17719 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015
Yeah...happened here in good ol' Houston. You would think that in today's electronic advancements in technology, a system could be designed that if the wheel speed is above say 3 MPH, then the bed has a lock-out sensor that won't raise the bed even if the switch is activated. How about a damned warning buzzer??? Kinda like a squat switch on a retractable gear airplane.....switch senses "weight on wheels" and the gear is not "supposed" to go up even if you activate the gear handle. I'm not gonna test that, though, without the plane being on jack stands.
"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
Yeah, we had a digger derrick that the driver forgot to lower completely. As he started down the road there was a large fiber optic line running diagonally across the road. The boom grabbed it and it slowly picked up the truck, front first, carried it across the 2 oncoming lanes and off the shoulder on the other side of the road where it rolled over. Nobody hurt but totalled the truck.
I'll bet the driver was turning right the whole time trying to get the thing to come back into his lane. I would have loved to see the expression on his face .... Boy was AT&T pissed as it was their FO line.
Posts: 877 | Location: Alabama | Registered: January 05, 2005
