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I think most of us are familiar with the American bridge which kills trucks, but it seems everyone involved with this incident on the M5 that’s kept it closed for most of the day are struggling to explain how it happened.
edit: sorry, I can’t find any image that will open properly. 🥴
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M80 one was possibly even better as some old boy managed to then crash into the thing
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/6385189.stm
It’s just been on BBC Points West, nobody’s quite sure, the incident was at J18, it seems the truck joined at J17, but nobody’s clear on whether it was already up, or if it went up while the truck was moving. The latter seems most likely, there’s lots of road furniture and infrastructure all down that stretch, I’ve driven it many times, and I can’t imagine it travelling very far without hitting anything before jamming against the sign gantry. It ripped the tipper part clean off the truck, which stopped further down the road. The northbound section from Avonmouth has now reopened.
Impressively strong gantry!
I'd strongly suggest that the driver failed to secure the tipper fully then drove onto the motorway, then either the force of the air against the leading edge pulled the bed slowly up or the driver inadvertently raised it. Highly unlikely he had it up all the way from joining the motorway as there's plenty if other stuff that would have caught it first and as it was empty at the time (no sign of a load anywhere) then it would have lifted pretty easily by air pressure or by the hydraulics. Highly unlikely it's a system failure as they're designed to fail to a safe mode ie down or lock in place.
Either way the driver and company are going to have a very hard time thanks to a DVSA investigation, that's O license revocation level trouble.
The bridge doesn't pay road tax.
I'm hearing it was Matt Hancock's fault apparently.
Pat on the back to the (probably junior) engineer who did the beam calcs on the gantry!
The eejit left the hood up.
No way did that lift up by air pressure, not at 56mph.
How the hell can this happen...I'm really struggling to understand...
EDIT... I mean in terms of physics, rather than bad driving.
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As someone who has driven these tippers, I can assure you that hasn't risen whilst been driven.
The bodies are raised by hydraulics and can only be raised when stationary. They require you to press the clutch down for a few seconds to wait for the flywheel to slow down before pressing a button that angages the lifting gear. Only then can do raise up the body.
There are audible and visual alarms to let the driver know that the gear has engaged and that the body is raised.
The body can be lowered whilst driving however as you're simply releasing the hydraulic oil bank into the tank from the rams.
Just in case anyone on the internet isn't familiar with the 11-foot 8 bridge that the OP mentioned. You'd think Roger Penske would have chipped in some money to have it raised.
There’s a live report from the M5 on BBC Points West now, there will be further closures of the M5 over the weekend, the superspan of the gantry has been bent, so it’s being removed and sent back to the manufacturer for repair.
as scruff9252 said above, all credit to the manufacturer for building it strong enough to take an impact like that, with little visual damage. I can’t imagine that a loading on that scale was ever really considered when they designed it.
Edit: I’ve just scrolled back through the previous posts, and seen the one by mattyfez. Virtually identical circumstances, except for the poor sod who was unlucky enough to be right behind the bed when it fell off the back; bloody lucky not to have driven straight up the inside of the bed! 😳
Also, thanks to transporter13 for the insight from an operator’s point of view, that’s really helpful to know. Clearly operator error, phenomenally lucky that didn’t end up as a multi-vehicle incident with possible fatalities.
Hang on. As long-time readers of STW car threads will no doubt remember, I know from personal experience that some apparently bonkers things can happen to automotive electrics, especially if water is involved, that may cause things to activate when you are not expecting them to or vice-versa. It's at least possible that an electrical fault caused this, but more likely something like a combination of for example failsafes not working, physical lock not engaged and a driver either accidentally hitting a button or mindlessly playing with it like I used to do with door handles when I was a kid.
I once did something similar while helping out on another farm during silage making. You fill the trailer in the field with 12 tonnes of grass, drive back to the farm, reverse into the silage pit, tip the trailer (just like that lorry up there) and then drive off with you hand on the hydraulic lever to lower the trailer back down. Except I obviously forgot on one occasion. I soon realised my mistake when the front of the trailer hit a branch on one of the large oak trees on the farm drive. Back wheels of the tractor came off the ground and I nearly went through the windscreen. Luckily the only damage was a 45 degree bend in front of the upper extension to the trailer which my brother was able to straighten in a few moments with the loader he was using to compact the grass in the silage pit. I don't think anyone else ever realised!
Was pretty scary at the time and I certainly make a point of checking the trailer is fully down now .
it’s being removed and sent back to the manufacturer for repair.
Do you think this is covered under warranty?
'I was just standing around, over the motorway...'
Molgrips
The PTO can ONLY be engaged when the vehicle is stationary.
A power take-off (PTO) is a mechanical gearbox used to transfer power from the engine and transmission of a truck to supplementary elements, such as hydraulic pumps. The pump generates a hydraulic flow that's transferred to cylinders and hydraulic motors as their power source.
I've genuinely tried to leave the PTO engaged and drive off to see if it's possible and I've never managed to get it to work.
except for the poor sod who was unlucky enough to be right behind the bed when it fell off the back; bloody lucky not to have driven straight up the inside of the bed!
One has to question the faculties of someone who would drive right behind a dumper with its bed raised and/or not notice it was raised in the first place
One has to question the faculties of someone who would drive right behind a dumper with its bed raised and/or not notice it was raised in the first place
Without knowing the exact circumstances around that incident, like light and weather, it’s possible that the driver of the MPV just thought it might have been the back-end of a large articulated truck - some like Home Depot trailers are very tall, it probably didn’t look much different, and there would have been no brake lights to show it was stationary.
I’ve genuinely tried to leave the PTO engaged and drive off to see if it’s possible and I’ve never managed to get it to work.
Aren’t there roadworks on that bit of the M5? Maybe he’d been delivering something.
Guess 1: the interlock had at some point in the past engaged when it shouldn’t, and was overridden/disabled by a mechanic. Original problem never fixed and driver either forgets to lower the bed or moves the lever accidentally.
Guess 2: Bed was down but not mechanically locked. Force of wind allows bed to lift against depressurised hydraulics.
Or a combination of 1 & 2. I would laugh but as someone who’s taken out a car park barrier with a roof-mounted bike, I won’t.
as someone who’s taken out a car park barrier with a roof-mounted bike, I won’t.
Small potatoes. This guy drove off with the roof from an entrance of a residential car park.
Drove under the gantry that got hit, it's nicely banana'd but still in place. Still can't see how it got that far if the bed was up all the way as, like CountZero says, there are plenty of other gantries you pass under before you get to the one that was hit.
I’ve genuinely tried to leave the PTO engaged and drive off to see if it’s possible and I’ve never managed to get it to work.
I've sat and watched trucks on building sites moving around while lifting and lowering their beds tipping out soil and gravel, how would they achieve that? Always at walking pace so might that be a factor? Genuinely want to know as I've never driven a tipper.
The rumour going round the truck stops is that this vehicle had a safety system disabled, allowing the bed to be raised while moving. Every tipper driver locally is making sure their checks, cards etc are fully up to date as the DVSA will be spot-checking over the next week.
Do you think this is covered under warranty?
Crash Replacement
With the PTO engaged you can’t take out of 2nd gear. You can drive forwards as you sometimes need to go empty the contents.
The driver was tipping stone opposite the Nice car garages on Catbrian hill, turned left up the hill and left again onto M5 south. He hit the first gantry that he came too.
Almost certainly failed to drop tipper body on site and didn’t look in mirrors once. I would imagine the site operators would be having their procedures looked at too.
Driver is currently looking for a clean pair of pants and a new job.
He was lucky, could have been much worse.
Oh, there is no way, seriously, no way, the wind blew the body up into that position. It’s 8mm corten steel. It’s heavy.
Unless maybe the driver was doing 1,000 miles per hour just before hand
With the PTO engaged you can’t take out of 2nd gear. You can drive forwards as you sometimes need to go empty the contents.
Is that tipper-specific? My only experience with a PTO was on a portaloo service tanker and that could be switched on at any time, had to be run every 20 mins or so to stop the crap settling and blocking the outlet. What about concrete lorries, they have to turn all the time otherwise it sets. They obviously run off the engine as they speed up slightly when they start moving.
Driver is currently looking for a clean pair of pants and a new job.
If found to have been negligent he could be facing up to 6 months inside, no employer would touch him afterwards!
As far as the Tipper driver I spoke to yesterday was concerned, there is no way (massive electro - mechanical fault notwithstanding) that you could be going that speed in a tipper with the PTO engaged.
As mentioned earlier, I think you can drop the body without the PTO.
That’s where the error occurred, I expect. That and not checking mirrors, it would have been quite obvious if he had. You would have thought the body roll and weight distribution of the truck would have felt a bit odd as it went round the roundabout and the tight left turn onto the slip road!
Many, but not all, tippers have a rear window in the cab. If that was the case then you'd see the raised body if you looked; the truth will out I'm sure
It's surprising how little difference 2 tonnes or so makes to an empty truck, even up high. My truck (2 axle 18t twin deck) doesn't feel any different until I get above 2.5t of load, especially if it's lots of lighter stuff that's spread over the length of the loading area. The difference is really noticeable though once you get above 5 tonnes though, sluggish acceleration and it gets a bit wallowy round corners. If the truck was an 8 wheeler it can carry up to 20 tonnes and will weigh 12 tonnes empty (32t total allowable weight), that'll feel empty regardless if they've just unloaded a full load.
The mirror point is definitely valid though, plus any cameras fitted. That's just pure observational incompetence as every driver should be doing visual checks after every drop, a walk around or checking cameras.
Concrete mixer/agitator trucks will have a completely different set of controls and overrides. As you say @reluctantjumper they turn all the time by design, and the driver or automated control system will vary the revolution speed as required to keep the mix in spec during the journey.
PTOs on lorries can be configured in lots of different ways.
Some lorries will have permanently running PTOs (bin lorries are a typical example as the compactor system runs with the vehicle moving), some can only be run when stationary and the parking brake engaged (generally anything that is designed to only run when stationary, like utility vehicles), and pretty much anything in between.
The bodybuilders will have done the relevant risk/usage assessments and decided what configuration is appropriate for the end use, however that's not to say somebody hasn't re-configured it once it's left the bodybuilder.
The key thing that will be getting checked, is the stowage warning system.
With the body not fully down, and the park brake released, there should be a warning buzzer and light so the driver knows the body isn't correctly stowed.
As part of the vehicle inspections I do, I have to check the operation of these systems.
If I wasn't to check them, and something like this happened, I'd be facing an investigation and disciplinary.
If I find a system that's been tampered with, then the drivers/operators would be getting investigated by their employer, and anyone found to have tampered with a system, would most likely be looking for new employment.
However there are operators out there who will actively bypass these systems, as they see them as a pointless annoyance. That is until something does go wrong, and they suddenly find themselves as the focus of an investigation by Police/DVSA/HSE (delete as appropriate).
The example used on one of my training courses was a reasonably sized crane company who turned a blind eye to operators to bypassing stowage indicators and leg deployment sensors, in order to operate cranes beyond their design limits, and drive without needing the crane fully stowed. They tipped a couple lorries during use, but the final straw was when one hit a low bridge with an un-stowed crane, and they were subjected to a full investigation.
DVSA stripped them of their O-licence. HSE took them to court for breaches of HSE law. The insurance company refused to pay out due to safety systems being bypassed. And the driver got done by the police as he knew the stowage warning had been bypassed.