Bulldozer comes off of trailer, kills 2

[4570Man]

I don't think this is a bulldozer, since it does not have a "blade" in front, it has a bucket, it is a "tracked frontend loader", I thought something looked familiar about this pic, I have one very similar to this, narrow tracks too. The tracks are not sharp like a dozer's and will slide very easily and on an alum. flat bed instead of wood, it wouldn't take much of a turn to make it slide if it did not have 4 chains, one on each corner to hold it in place.

It’s definitely a track loader. But I’d say that’s closer than average for a news article.

 

[Snezzy]

Yeah,
I was following a "farm" truck up highway 72 north of Scottsboro, AL where it was 2 lane. They had 3 large round bails on the back. I was trying to get to pass them. One bail dropped off and came right at me. Luckily I was able to dodge it.

I chain 'em down just to drive with two round bales on my flatbed trailer two miles from my neighbor's farm to mine. Secure your load and know how to avoid tipping over.

These mistakes are easy to cause with just a moment of misplaced thinking. A friend who's normally a safety nut put an upright piano in the back of his pickup truck. Said to himself, "That sucker's so heavy it's not goin' nowhere." At the first corner the piano (they''re top-heavy) jumped out of the truck. "You never heard such a sound in your whole life," he said.

I told him, "You don't know how lucky you were." "Lucky? That was my WIFE's piano. I was in the doghouse for a month!" I said, "You didn't ask your friend Fat Freddy to ride back there and steady the load. It would have grabbed him by the belt and flipped him out, landing on top of him. Freddy hamburger." "OhMyGhodd," he said.

We move our own upright pianos in horse trailers. Loading a piano is almost as easy as loading a horse if you have the right equipment.

 

[Snezzy]

Only person I answered to was the owner of the company and he always told me 'to make it right, which I always did.

That's the correct structure. Safety and Quality departments should answer only to the top.

 

[grsthegreat]

I chain 'em down just to drive with two round bales on my flatbed trailer two miles from my neighbor's farm to mine. Secure your load and know how to avoid tipping over.

These mistakes are easy to cause with just a moment of misplaced thinking. A friend who's normally a safety nut put an upright piano in the back of his pickup truck. Said to himself, "That sucker's so heavy it's not goin' nowhere." At the first corner the piano (they''re top-heavy) jumped out of the truck. "You never heard such a sound in your whole life," he said.

I told him, "You don't know how lucky you were." "Lucky? That was my WIFE's piano. I was in the doghouse for a month!" I said, "You didn't ask your friend Fat Freddy to ride back there and steady the load. It would have grabbed him by the belt and flipped him out, landing on top of him. Freddy hamburger." "OhMyGhodd," he said.

We move our own upright pianos in horse trailers. Loading a piano is almost as easy as loading a horse if you have the right equipment.

oh yes i do. in calif, after the 94 earthquake, i remodeled a 3 story condo project. we lifted the entire complex off the ground and replaced the foundation. But, on the upper floor there was a baby grand piano that was damaged in quake,and NO way to safely remove from building. stairs unusable.

insurance co said demo inplace. NAAA, what fun is that. we were replacing all windows anyways, so we secured a place on sidewalk below, and tossed it out the window. those were notes you never heard before.

 

[groundcover]

In today's world you could have made enough on a YouTube or TicToc to pay for the renovation !

 

[Rustyiron]

To many news writers, any large machine with tracks is either a bulldozer or a tank, depending on paint color.

Bruce

Yeah that's definitely a Cat 955 track loader. Very close to 40,000#. A long way from "a mini dozer".

 

[jjp8182]

I'm always hesitant to recommend legislation, we need less laws and regulations, not more. But one exception I'd make would be to have reasonably-designed tie-down hooks on all mowers and CUT's, made into law. I use the John Deere name in vain, everytime I have to strap my CUT to my trailer. They almost could not have made it more difficult, to strap that thing down in a way that won't cause any damage to the machine, if they had tried.

I hear you on that - though passing new laws doesn't do much if they aren't enforced.

Several years ago I was going to pick up a trailer I ordered and on the way to the manufacturer I passed a spot where an AL State trooper had pulled over a pickup pulling a mini-excavator with a bunch of loose boards laying on the trailer as well.

Was wondering why he'd been pulled over until a several more miles down the road I saw where a pickup had been pulling a (very) overloaded dump trailer full of sand and the trailer had rolled over into the median. It'd made a huge mess that was still being cleaned up about a half hour later when I came back through that stretch going home with my new trailer.

Also saw the same truck, trailer and excavator just getting back on the road a few miles from where I'd seen them on my way out --- except when I saw them on the way home everything on the trailer had been "secured" (or at least as well as it could have been working on the side of the road without additional straps/chains).

So I'm guessing the trooper had responded to the dump trailer incident and after moving on from that scene once it started being resolved (on my way home there were still law enforcement vehicles there controlling traffic while the sand was being loaded into a dump truck) he started enforcing basic hauling safety laws. Which is something I'd so rarely seen them do that it hadn't even crossed my mind that could have been why the truck pulling the mini-ex was pulled over until after seeing over turned dump trailer.

While the way things were so poorly loaded on the trailer with the mini-ex it shouldn't have been a surprise it was a bit of one to see enforcement action actually being taken since it's so common to see unsecured loads being hauled and nothing being done about it in the way of enforcing existing laws -- or at least not prior to "bad things" happening....

 

[hhydro]

This tragedy happened near me so I'm familiar with the road and victim's the company though not the people personally. There are three routes into the valley which is a popular recreation area. None of the routes are easy with trucks, trailer, RVs, etc. This disaster of incompetence and negligence could have happened on any of the three routes.

First off, for this forum it wasn't a bulldozer. It was an old track loader like a Cat 955 or 977 which weighs 25 to 35 thousand pounds. They have a very different track grouser style than a dozer. Look closely at the photo and you'll see a loader bucket.

Such a high mass on a steel deck truck designed for hauling cars and pickups could have flipped the rollback tow truck on this steep winding canyon road even if it were secured with many chains and pocket stakes. One or two chains would have easily snapped with this heavy load high on an overloaded truck as it rocked back and forth around the curves.

This is a horrific tragedy.

 

[kenhar]

Definitely not a mini dozer, tracks indicate a track loader. That machine on a metal bed equals disaster. Loaded that high off the ground on a truck bed is idiotic to say the least. It's time that responsibility for sh_t like this accident be laid not only on the driver, the guy that loaded it, but also the owners of the equipment to be responsible (guilty), not only liable. Only being liable, the insurance company pays off (sometimes) and the guy who has the authority to say "do it right" gets away with no penalty. The dead guy is dead, the driver gets a fine, the owners insurance goes up. Lay the guilt on everyone involved all the way to the owner of the LLCs and add jail time to the penalty and see if the safety aspects of hauling anything on public roads or hi ways doesn't improve.

 

[WinterDeere]

Such a high mass on a steel deck truck designed for hauling cars and pickups could have flipped the rollback tow truck on this steep winding canyon road even if it were secured with many chains and pocket stakes. One or two chains would have easily snapped with this heavy load high on an overloaded truck as it rocked back and forth around the curves.

If I'm reading between your lines correctly, you're saying this loader should have never been loaded onto this truck, in the first place?