Pro Tip: Secure Your Flipping Equipment!

[Tallpine]

FIL is actually OK to hang out with

My FIL would be Ok to hang 

[roo_ster]

Murder sounds appropriate.

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This.

[41magsnub]

Watch a piece of scrap metal fly out the back of a truck and slice through the windshield of the car behind it.  Nobody injured.
A guy had firewood stacked too high in his truck and not secured, lost a bunch of it going around a corner and several cars behind him were damaged.

Not secured load, but watched an axle come off a low boy trailer at highway speed.  It pretty much crushed the car right behind the trailer and heavily damaged several more farther back.  Serious injuries in the first car.

[RevDisk]

My FIL is no longer allowed to have any part in loading or unloading a vehicle if I'm in the same state.

He has:

Beaned me in the back of the head with a sliding suitcase;
Honestly expected me to ride 4 hours with a bag in my lap because "the roof rack rails are confusing";
While hooking a trailer to my truck asked "what are these chains for?";
Damaged the JBL 300/4 amplifier in my trunk by repeatedly slamming his suitcase into it to try and close the lid.  Suitcase had to be turned 90*;
Tied knots in my ratchet straps because "the buckles were confusing";
and
Unloaded the truck by cutting my ratchet straps (different set).

Now I just tell him to wait inside until we're ready to go.  Apparently SWMBO relaxed this rule over Christmas visit (without me there) and he loaded her Explorer, got impatient, and raised the garage door with the liftgate of the Explorer still open.  Luckily it sounds like the emergency release gave before anything else.

Uh. And you haven't strangled him yet? Dude, you deserve some kind of humanitarian award.

I was trucking (hauling molten aluminum) in Lansing, Mi and had a steer tire blow out. It left the rim, shot across the three lanes on my side of the freeway, went thought the median, across three more lanes, then out into a field. All without touching another vehicle.

Buddy of mine back at Sikorsky lived next to what we locals called "the murder house". Teenage kid went nuts and killed a classmate's family for no particular reason. Killed the parents and son, but not the daughter. Very weird, no explanations or logic whatsoever. Dude's wife expressed a desire to move, as apparently living next to a house with an impressively gruesome triple murder is not relaxing. Buddy managed to convince her that financially, it probably wasn't a good idea.

About two days later, buddy is mowing lawn. Tire comes loose off a vehicle. Comes flying at him, he hits the deck, tire hits the curb, goes flying right over his head and through a window into the murder house. Cops that were watching the house ask him if he's alright and variations of "Did that just happen?"

I helped buddy move about two weeks later.   

[tokugawa]

This thread should be re-titled "survival lessons for bikers".
 
 

[Tallpine]

I just remembered ... about a year ago a trucker lost his "pup" trailer on the highway not far from where our county road junctions.  It went off to the right through a guard rail and down into a coulee (the road is hilly right there).

I heard the drama on the radio: apparently the driver didn't notice until he got to the next town about 20 miles away, and then got a ride back to the scene with a state trooper.

It made me a little nervous because Ladypine was driving the road that evening, but she went through before and after the wreck.  She had to slow down for the emergency vehicles but didn't know what had actually happened until she got home and I told her.

[JonnyB]

Some years ago, Mrs. B. was stopped at a light in Prior Lake, MN. There are two lanes at the light, narrowing to a single lane a few hundred feet beyond the intersection. Guy in the left lane, in a pickup, wants to be ahead of any potential slow-pokes in the right, so he mashes the gas on green. Problem is, he left the steel-pipe clothesline poles in the middle of the intersection as he accelerated out from under them. Open tailgate; no tie-downs. Dumbass.

Former employer lost a pull-type scraper when the hitch let go as he was transporting it through Hutchinson, MN. He was nearly to the top of a long, gentle incline when it departed the semi-tractor tow rig. No cars damaged in its flight until it came to rest in a dealer's showroom.

jb

[Kingcreek]

Years ago on interstate 80 I was driving about 1am. I saw a nice new looking ratchet strap coiling out of my lane onto the shoulder. I checked my mirrors and thought about pulling over and taking ownership of it. For some reason I looked up just in time to see a stack of wall sections to a prefab house coming off a flatbed like playing cards off a deck and tumbling and breaking up all across the lanes. I took to the median and caught up to the truck and flashed lights until he pulled over. A real mess

[roo_ster]

Want to know what happens when you don't secure the rear gate on the back of a semi-tractor cattle trailer?  Sure wish I didn't.  What an ugly mess.  (Saw late 1990s in GA, southbound I75.)

[makattak]

Want to know what happens when you don't secure the rear gate on the back of a semi-tractor cattle trailer? 

Lots of hamburger?

[tokugawa]

Heh- I saw an Indian lose a load of gillnet salmon out of his pickup in Tacoma some years ago- that was a slippery load, guess he forgot about the hills....

[brimic]

wife delivered a queen sized futon to my fil.   Tied that sucker down tight as a drum with quick release knots.  Had to survive an 8 hour ride.  When she got there fil and bil cut all my lines.  The lines I had made from 550 cord specifically to secure loads and used for years.  Hell.

Trucker's Hitch?
One of those underutilized knots that not too many people know of...

[Firethorn]

Murder sounds appropriate.

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Cutting my ratchet straps would cause that for me.  The knots?  You get to get them out.

Of course, it took me like 2 minutes to figure ratchets out, then the 2nd time I figured out more tricks to make it easier.  At this point I think they're almost easier than bungee cords, besides being a whole lot stronger!  Though I'll admit that getting good quality ones helps - less likely  to bind/get out of alignment.  Part of the problem is that expensive doesn't necessarily equal good, and they normally have them strapped down so you can't really test the ratchet action.

[Tallpine]

Want to know what happens when you don't secure the rear gate on the back of a semi-tractor cattle trailer?  Sure wish I didn't.  What an ugly mess.  (Saw late 1990s in GA, southbound I75.)

Yeah, I almost forgot ... a few years ago I heard a radio drama about somebody distributing sheep on the highway. 

They had two county sherrif departments and the highway patrol out there.  They had to shoot a few of them, or maybe they just wanted to see if their guns still worked.

[Cliffh]

Following a stake bed down the south side of the Grapevine on I5 in CA (large mountains, steep up & down) driving a motorhome converted into a portable X-ray lab.  The right side of the bed blew out, dropping watermelons across all 4 lanes.

Ever got a motorhome sideways at 60+mph?  Supervisor was riding shotgun - he called for a rest stop at the next exit.  I had a good time, but then I am an adrenaline junky.

[vaskidmark]

Following a stake bed down the south side of the Grapevine on I5 in CA (large mountains, steep up & down) driving a motorhome converted into a portable X-ray lab.  The right side of the bed blew out, dropping watermelons across all 4 lanes.

Ever got a motorhome sideways at 60+mph?  Supervisor was riding shotgun - he called for a rest stop at the next exit.  I had a good time, but then I am an adrenaline junky.

Rest stop or cleanout?

That is why they tell you to pack a change of clothing in your BOB.

stay safe.

[Sergeant Bob]

Following a stake bed down the south side of the Grapevine on I5 in CA (large mountains, steep up & down) driving a motorhome converted into a portable X-ray lab meth lab.  The right side of the bed blew out, dropping watermelons across all 4 lanes.

Ever got a motorhome sideways at 60+mph?  Supervisor was riding shotgun - he called for a rest stop at the next exit.  I had a good time, but then I am an adrenaline junky.

Say my name! sorry, it's just what immediately popped into my head!

[Tallpine]

Following a stake bed down the south side of the Grapevine on I5 in CA (large mountains, steep up & down) driving a motorhome converted into a portable X-ray lab.  The right side of the bed blew out, dropping watermelons across all 4 lanes.

Ever got a motorhome sideways at 60+mph?  Supervisor was riding shotgun - he called for a rest stop at the next exit.  I had a good time, but then I am an adrenaline junky.

Ah, yes - the "British" stretch of highway 

[never_retreat]

Almost forgot, I lost about 50 lengths of unistrut out of a box truck also.
Loaded the truck closed the door, ran inside to grab something came back out and drove away.
Dumped them in the driveway, it was a bit of an incline out of the lot. Some jackass (boss) decided to look in the truck. Door must have went all the way up and he did not feel like climbing up to close it.

[RocketMan]

Here's a type of unsecured load I absolutely despise.  Following a pickup westbound down Hwy 22 through Detroit, OR years back.  Saw their dog fall out of the back as it made a quick right onto a side road.   People ought to hang for this kind of stupidity.

[Scout26]

Driving the spotting truck one time, went to pull a container out of the lot to put into one of the doors, and WHOOPS I guess the kingpin wasn't fully locked into the fifth wheel.  Fortunately, only the chassis landing gear suffered from the bouncing and skidding.  $1000 in repairs to get the legs fixed.  Repair said that had the container been empty,  it not might have suffered any damage.  (At least they didn't fold up under the thing, only badly bent.)

In High Screwl while working construction we had the aluminum siding brake fall off after a job on the way out of a residential neighborhood (it had speed bumps, for the chilluns.)  The minute it fell off the boss and I looked at each other and said "I thought you tied it down!!".  Only the handle was bent, so I had to deal with that on all the following jobs.