Want to see what Pam sees every day?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by tw

That is why research into lithium (stifled since the 1960s) is now occurring in places other than Japan.

Lithium is a hell of a drug, man.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

Lithium is a hell of a drug, man.

But the central committee of the communist party could not enrich themselves on something so useful - for brains and batteries. So they pushed opioids. Opioids are bad for brains and batteries. But opioids enrich and power the 'right' people.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Here we are talking about this shit and pretending we know what we're talking about.

We could be politicians! Or movie stars!

[Undertoad]

Yesterday at dusk, I passed someone hauling a backhoe, going south on 476.

Some dude was going 65 hauling a backhoe, and switching lanes fast as if they were driving a car. I passed them and did 70 for a while. It's probably twenty years ago, but I remember a story where someone was hauling construction equipment up the Schuylkill Expressway incorrectly, and a piece broke off and killed a woman instantly.

Five miles later, 476 intersects into 95. As usual, there's congestion and a slowdown, just as the ramps and merges are getting started. Two lanes are slowing down quick. Don't cha know, I hear big metal braking sounds and rumble rumble and here comes Mr. Backhoe fast down the skinny right shoulder. He didn't notice the congestion and couldn't slow down, and this was his emergency maneuver.

No doubt, the fuckin' guy was doing 65 right into the I-95 south merge. It can slow down fast, but this was still a light curve at that point.

(For locals, it was just before the MacDade ramp merges in. They guy wound up in the lane that ramp creates, so suddenly he was fine and could merge just like he came up the ramp.)

I imagine Pamela has low respect for these part-timers, who probably get a CDL so they can make an extra hour's wages per day to drive the gear to the site. It's the end of the day, Saturday, you know he was rushing to get home.

[Gravdigr]

Here in KY, I believe you can drive a single axle (maybe dual axle, too) with no CDL if you own the vehicle. I think. I'm wrong a lot. More and more.

[Pamela]

UT, what was the tractor vehicle? A pickup or a commercial truck? I have little respect for the guys who haul RVs and small car haulers and such because although they have CDLs and follow the same rules I do, they seem to think they are special and should be catered to everywhere.

Grav, you need a CDL to drive intrastate as well as interstate in any CMV; some rules are suspended if it's a registered farm vehicle but not the license.

[xoxoxoBruce]

CDL is for over 25,000 lbs isn't it?

[Undertoad]

It was like one of these deals (obviously not this particular company, but this style truck and bed)

[Carruthers]

Here in the UK in 1997, the unsecured back hoe of a digger being transported as pictured above, swung out and hit a car killing five people in the process.

I remember the accident quite well, but surprised that it was nineteen years ago.

The driver of a low-loader lorry which killed five people has been ordered by court to receive treatment in a psychiatric hospital.

Mark Wade, appeared for sentence at Truro Crown Court after his conviction last month of causing the death of five people by dangerous driving.

Mr Wade was driving a lorry that was carrying a digger. The arm of the digger was not properly secured and swung out hitting the cars behind it.

Judge Graham Cottle said he was satisfied Wade was suffering from a mental illness linked to post traumatic stress disorder and depression.

The judge said two psychiatric reports revealed Wade had been very seriously and deeply affected adding: "You are a decent and hard-working family man who would never deliberately cause harm to another human being."

He said it was very significant that Wade, of Fraddon, west Cornwall, would be haunted by the memory of these events.

The accident happened at 6.30pm on a minor road at Castle-an-Dinas, west Cornwall, on December 15 1995 when Wade was driving the vehicle back to his St Columb depot having started work at 2.58am.

The digger arm swung out into the path of oncoming cars and there was an "explosion of glass and metal" with the roofs of vehicles "peeled open", the prosecution said during the trial. Last month the companies which employed Wade, Bazeley Plant Hire, from St Columb, and Chepstow Plant Hire, from Gwent, were ordered to pay a total of £500,000 in fines and costs after conviction for not ensuring the vehicle was not a risk to safety.

During the trial the Crown said the digger arm on the low loader should have been restrained with a metal pin and chained down but it was not.

Wade had told the jury he had received no instruction from any employer about loading in ten years of work.

He knew nothing about the metal pins used to secure digger arms, nor had it been his practice to chain the bucket arm.

There was a spare chain on the lorry but Wade said he had not used it to secure the digger because: "I thought it was safe".

The judge said he was satisfied in the absence of any training or supervision from either of the other defendants, Wade loaded the excavator in exactly the same way he always loaded excavators.

"You knew no different way. You had been taught no different way. You picked up the job as you went along, in the process learning bad habits. It seems from the evidence you were by no means alone in that," said the judge.

"Had you been properly instructed you would have followed those instructions. So it is the failures of others which are largely to blame for what happened.

BBC Archived article.

[Clodfobble]

Why had it never swung out before? What made the turn so centrifugal this time? In decades of people driving unsecured diggers around, no one had ever made a fast turn?

[Griff]

I would guess the bucket must not have been dropped to the deck and the hydraulics must have been somehow inactive?

[glatt]

I'm speculating here, and getting a little outside of my knowledge, but that won't prevent me from spouting off. I think built up pressure in the hydraulic hoses tend to keep the shovel in position. If a hose is leaking, the pressure will drop, and the shovel can move then. Maybe a hose or fitting was leaking.

[fargon]

When I hauled backhoes, I would put the bucket on the trailer deck and put a chain across it. Just to prevent that from happening. Never trust the hydraulics to hold anything. I have never seen a backhoe with a pin to keep the boom from moving.

[Griff]

hmmm... I think Dad's backhoe has a travel pin but I don't think it prevents that. It seems like a simple safety feature to add.

[fargon]

You never trust the hydraulics to hold in transit.