Tie downs who needs stinkin tie downs

[maddog]

Not sure what some folks are thinking when they set out on the highway? I was cruising home on the I 40 between Monterey and Cookeville TN the other day doing around 68mph. A fairly nice truck pulling a decent trailer flies by me hauling a wheeled SS, no big deal except there was not 1 tie down, nothing. What has happened to common sense, why do others feel the need to risk others lives? I could care less what someone does on their own, but when involving others I really wish some could take 1 minute and pull their head out of their a**. :Banghead:Banghead:Banghead

 

[DoyleX]

My ol man used to haul unchained D8's half off the trailer bumping them into the J barrier to push em back in the trailer. Pre stressed hanging 20' off the back of a straight truck doing a wheelie over the bumps of the highway.

 

[Willie B]

30 years ago a small self employed excavation contractor argued that chains don't hold machines on. A crawler gets plenty good traction on a wooden trailer deck. He would put the blade against the I beam at the front of the deck, and lock the brake on his John Deere 350. He ran around that way for years. One day I came upon his dozer on its side in a brook.

Last weekend Mrs B and I went to Maine. On 95 I was driving 75 as most of the traffic. I was passed by a car doing about 85. On his roof was a queen sized box spring. The mattress was tied near the middle with two strands of twine, one passing through the front doors, the other through the back doors. Wind force had stretched the twine so the front of the mattress was 2' higher than the rear. This idiot seemed unaware it was there. I dropped my speed wanting reaction time when this thing flew off. I took an exit a few miles later. I'm guessing his actions had to kill somebody.

Willie

 

[maddog]

Its crazy what some fools will do on todays highways at 70,80+mph. Willie B; yup I've seen a few of those bed haulers motoring down the highway. ya have to wonder what shape the bed is in when they get to where they're going, or if it even makes it.

 

[hetkind]

Back when I lived in a area with a large inner city population, it was common to see around the end of the month, a large, US made four door sedan, with a stack of mattresses on top held down by an arm sticking out each window.

My trucks can always be identified by the variety of tie down hooks, latches, eyelets, ropes, and other securing devices.

In our county, we even have to tie down our garbage on the way to the "convenience center"



Howard

 

[movindirt]

I know guys that never chain anything down, I like to be on the side of safety myself, rather have too many chains then none.

 

[JNB]

I have this photo in my showtime thread, but it's just too good not to share again. Backhoe bucket hooked over the front of the trailer...no chains and headed for the highway.

 

[CM1995]

That pic is still a classic JNB! I love the tag on the front of the backhoe..

I saw the same thing this week. Nice GMC HD with new trailer and rubber tire skid on the trailer with not one tie down. How can people be that careless, stupid and have no disregard for other people on the road?

 

[Willie B]

I've seen in not so many years, a transition I consider huge. Years after my birth (in 1956) The first tractor backhoe loader was introduced. By the time I remember, smaller jobs were being taken over by TLBs Big cellar holes, and highway construction continued to be performed by dozers, or track loaders. The house I sit in now built in 1981 had no hoe type digging until the power line was installed. The Drott bucket predated, for the most part the excavators. An international 150 (1.5 cu yd) IH spent a week digging for my small house.

The local IH dealer had a Farmall M C 1940 with trip loader, and primitive hoe. The toothless hoe was able to lift its small bucket full of sand. The lotion of liberating a big rock would have been silly. My father hired it with operator to dig a drywell for mother's new automatic washer in maybe 1964. After a day or more they gave up. The drywell was ultimately dug by hand.

Mid sixties, a local bought a new Case 530? Construction King. He had more work than he could handle. He had a single axle dump truck, if I remember, an IH I'd guess 2200 LBS gross, gas. The standard transport was to hang the front bucket over the truck tailgate, lift the front wheels off the ground. I've never done it, I bet cornering is imperfect. A good friend tried it later and smoked the transmission of his TLB.

Rules evolve, new ones are the result of stupidity. This crap was once OK!

 

[JNB]

Willie, you and I were born the same year. At the first excavation company I worked at after high school (mid 70's), IH 100 track loaders with 4n1's were the norm for digging pools. We used to load them up aluminum ramps into the back of 10-wheeler dumps. No tie downs of any kind.

Besides the IH 100's, the company had a couple of 125's, 175's (TL's all had 4n1's), TD7's, TD15's and a couple scrapers and blades. They also had a few backhoes and skip loaders as well. Not an excavator in sight on any of the jobs.

 

[check]

I think a large sector of the population is born without the slightest clue about the laws of physics. Concepts like momentum, wind resistance, leverage, centrifugal force and gravity they do not comprehend. Worse yet, they think they do.

 

[fast_st]

National grid tried that, they launched a JCB wheeled machine off a trailer with one non-employee fatality.

 

[old-iron-habit]

I think a large sector of the population is born without the slightest clue about the laws of physics. Concepts like momentum, wind resistance, leverage, centrifugal force and gravity they do not comprehend. Worse yet, they think they do.

I fully agree with you. Kids get sent to school and only get programed by folks, most of whom have never existed outside of a school or had to think for themselves. Schools need to go back to teaching kids how to think for themselves, and reason, not just programing them to somebodies ideology.

 

[Willie B]

Willie, you and I were born the same year. At the first excavation company I worked at after high school (mid 70's), IH 100 track loaders with 4n1's were the norm for digging pools. We used to load them up aluminum ramps into the back of 10-wheeler dumps. No tie downs of any kind.

Besides the IH 100's, the company had a couple of 125's, 175's (TL's all had 4n1's), TD7's, TD15's and a couple scrapers and blades. They also had a few backhoes and skip loaders as well. Not an excavator in sight on any of the jobs.

In 1953 a 21 year old excavator from Wilton CT bought a farm in VT as a vacation property. Charlie was a real hard worker. He built quite a company in CT. Eventually his much younger brother moved to VT, on the farm, and continued in Charlie's footsteps. They were very big on IH 175s. They must have had 8 or more, a TD15, and a TD25. There was one IH 150. Most of these had Drott buckets. In skilled hands these things are amazing! They also had two Bucyrus Erie cable shovels, and a truck mounted cable shovel. Watching Charlie's son load with a cable shovel is awe inspiring, not quite as fast as a modern super sized wheel loader, but very fast.
Maybe it was 1970 when the first backhoe arrived. The first excavator I ever saw was in the aftermath of a flood in 1973 or 1979, I can't remember which flood. There were a number of big government contracts for stream dredging. A different local contractor bought two John Deeres, a 690, and a 790.

 

[fast_st]

I fully agree with you. Kids get sent to school and only get programed by folks, most of whom have never existed outside of a school or had to think for themselves. Schools need to go back to teaching kids how to think for themselves, and reason, not just programing them to somebodies ideology.

See, there, right there, bring back the jungle-gym sitting on the pad of 3/4 stone, lots of lessons to learn right there. Kids learn fast!

 

[Todd v.]

Just last Monday i got caught in a holdup on I20, it turned out to be a mini-ex in the 3 ton range laying on it side in the left two lanes. There were skid marks from the trailer swaying badly and no signs of any chains or tie downs. It was being pulled by a utility body pickup with a small worn out looking tagalong trailer. Expensive lesson, did not involve any other vehicles thankfully.

 

[Heavey Metal]

If your driveing skills are capable of throwing a piece of equipment off a trailer all the tiedown will do is add the trailer to the wreck.

But the law is the law.

 

[Willie B]

If your driveing skills are capable of throwing a piece of equipment off a trailer all the tiedown will do is add the trailer to the wreck.

But the law is the law.

I'm not buying it. A 50 ton excavator could break chains in a wreck, but keeping it in place on the trailer won't involve all that much tension, and might prevent a wreck.

Willie

 

[Heavey Metal]

A 50 ton trailer only weighs 10 tons

So splain to me how you are going to break the chains.

 

[CM1995]

See, there, right there, bring back the jungle-gym sitting on the pad of 3/4 stone, lots of lessons to learn right there. Kids learn fast!

I agree - bring it all back. When it was time for the training wheels to come off, they came off and you adjusted quickly or had the scars to show for it. All the time without a helmet or pads.

We were taught "cause and effect".