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Fatal accident, traffic flagman.

lantraxco

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
7,704
Location
Elsewhen
Yeah, around here with long drawbars, or on a dump truck and pup with an extended reach, they'll put a strobe light between truck and trailer, it's common for people to merge or pass and try to pull in in between. Darwin is a alive and well my friends.
 

kshansen

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 11, 2012
Messages
11,128
Location
Central New York, USA
Occupation
Retired Mechanic in Stone Quarry
Not exactly the same as some here but one Sunday morning back in 2014 an older gent in his hotrod 1952 Chevy convertible was coming down our road on the way to a car show when a deer ran out in front of him. Guy jumped on brakes and spun out and managed to put a nice crease in left front fender and pop two tires off the rims in our front yard. No injuries except to his car. Well wife and step-daughter went out to check on him and they decided to call State Police. While waiting for the Trooper to show guy called his body shop/tow outfit who just happened to be the kid I grew up with so giving directions were easy. I took phone and said Steve, this is Ken the guy is in my front yard!

Trooper showed up and after a quick couple questions to the driver he proceeded to put flares out in both directions and then he parked his Blazer on the side of road facing north, with all lights going. We were standing next to his vehicle chatting away waiting for the roll-back to show up and discussing the crazy fools that pass in the no passing zone that is front of our house.

Not two minutes latter a fuel tanker heading south breaks over the rise in front of our house and sure enough a car pulls out and passes the truck with the Trooper sitting right there! Driver of the tanker hits air horns and Trooper who was facing the other direction says "Did that guy just pass that truck?" We say "Sure Did!" Trooper took off after the guy and caught him a bout a mile up the road. Guy said he was in a hurry to get where he was going so Trooper told him "Wait where you are and if I'm not back in half an hour you can leave." Not sure if the guy was still there when Trooper returned but at least the jerk was probably late getting where he was headed. I think if I was the Trooper I would have taken the guys papers and left him there to wait and after breakfast returned to see if he learned anything!
 

emmett518

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2021
Messages
810
Location
USA
You can be 100% safe and legal and still be in trouble on the road. When I was first hauling heavy equipment I was humming up a long straight stretch, two lanes of traffic, no on or off ramps, 55 mph zone... left about six or eight car lengths for stopping distance, plenty! Got up to where there was a signal light ahead, light turned yellow, five cars dove over to get in front of me... not enough air on the planet to stop that rig! Luckily with all the tires howling and billowing smoke the left lane cleared and I went sliding by all those idiots who no doubt were thinking how stupid that truck driver was, hadn't I seen the light? Was only the beginning but it sure as hell made me a lot wiser driver.

I never pull out in front of a truck, and give them lots of space.
 

JLarson

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
656
Location
AZ
Occupation
Owner- civil and heavy repair/fab company
I always dread flagging ops. I try and place our guys away from traffic as best as possible and make sure they're paying attention and have a way out.
 

skyking1

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2020
Messages
7,462
Location
washington
I worked a night paving job on I-5 in the Centralia Chehalis area. We had two drunks come through a closure the wrong way, and a couple swim through the right way. The one person just froze at the stop area, and the flagger was trying to get them moving when they punched it and then tagged one of those plastic barrels and shot it clear off the highway. That is when I saw them as the projectiles that they could be.
We had to jackhammer the bridge joints out right next to the live lane. That was sketchy.
 

Kiwi-truckwit

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2016
Messages
315
Location
New Zealand
You can be 100% safe and legal and still be in trouble on the road. When I was first hauling heavy equipment I was humming up a long straight stretch, two lanes of traffic, no on or off ramps, 55 mph zone... left about six or eight car lengths for stopping distance, plenty! Got up to where there was a signal light ahead, light turned yellow, five cars dove over to get in front of me... not enough air on the planet to stop that rig! Luckily with all the tires howling and billowing smoke the left lane cleared and I went sliding by all those idiots who no doubt were thinking how stupid that truck driver was, hadn't I seen the light? Was only the beginning but it sure as hell made me a lot wiser driver.
Similar happened to me last week... Driving a large all-terrain crane, lights turned up ahead and somebody in front of me changed lanes & then hit the brakes.... It was a miracle I managed to get pulled up in time, about an inch off the back of the guy in front of me who was no doubt oblivious to how close to disaster he was.
 

JLarson

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
656
Location
AZ
Occupation
Owner- civil and heavy repair/fab company
Oh yeah F those big plastic drums. We do a lot of road side stuff for utilities, pipe, valves, vaults. We've gone to cones pretty much exclusively at least near us. At least a cone with will usually squish, get run over, or get spat out the back of a vehicle not at us.

Plus we can fit a lot of cones in the back of a pick up over anything else.
 
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