A rant related to nothing

[timothyr1014]

So lately I have been able to pick alot of small hauling jobs (which is good for keeping the bills paid) and I honestly love my 86 cc dually as an all around hauler.

Normally I trust NO ONE when it comes to loading and preping my rig before any kind of heavy run (this is from my OTR days)....today I learned why. I was doing an accross town run and mapped it to where I would be on lesser traveled streets, at sub 50 mph speeds. The load was about 3200 lbs of motor/transmission/front clip in the bed, and another IDI ext cab with a loaded bed on a custom dolly behind me...didnt run accross any scales, but was without a doubt pushing the envelope. She pulled the load well, and all was going good until a moron in a chevy cobalt decided to dive in front of me at 45 MPH, slam the brakes to make an immediate right hand turn....granted that pissed me off, but the part that caught me by total surprise was when I hit the brakes....even with all the weight in the bed the rear locked up and slid like a mother. I know my rig and all my equpiment very well, and as much as it was stressful it should have been nowhere near as dramatic as it was. Turns out the guy I was hauling for (who also loaded me) pulled the trailer connector to use auxilary lamps (mind you I have a plug on the dolly to connect my towing lamps)...so at the end of the day I got to experience a panic stop with a full load and about 10k behind me, and no trailer brakes....the upside is no one got hurt, and no damage was done. the downside is that I need a new pair of underware and am majorly kicking myself for not doing a proper pretrip check and instead trusting someone else.

I will say, for a nearly 25 year old truck, she proves true that although an IDI may be slow it will always get you there.....she is a damn good workhorse.

time to finish a case and call it a day

 

[rhkcommander]

Glad it all turned out alright! A well kept idi will return the favor

 

[Shaguardriver]

Way to watch the road and know in advance what was going to happen. I had a simular situation this weekend an accident closed the main road so I was routed through a few of the subdivisions. I missed a car comming out of their drive at Mach 2.

It is amazing how it is so hard to see a Crew cab Long box dually with a 20 foot trailer with a large Jeep on the trailer with dune flags still on it I think it would show up on a arial photo.

 

[Brutis]

I get that kind of treatment too- a lot. My trucks in my avatar- Does it look hard to see?

 

[Agnem]

When it comes to trailers, you really can't trust anyone. A certain young man in my family was once trusted to hook up the boat prior to a long trip on a 3 day weekend. Surprisingly it made it about 25 miles before it decided to demonstrate the fact that the ball was never really IN the coupler, but mearly UNDER it. That wouldn't have been so bad if it were not for the fact that said individual repeated this feat with yet a different boat trailer and I was stupid enough to think that after suffering the embarasment the first time, that a repeat performance was absolutely impossible. We now do full inspections for everyone trusted to assist.

 

[Goofyexponent]

I would do the same thing. If I am responsible for driving the vehicle, or if I am even a passenger in the loaded vehicle, I still keep a watchful eye on the items being loaded and how the trailer is loaded.

The U haul guys hooked the trailer to my truck when I moved my buddy a couple weeks back. Even though he does it for a living, I am the one that had to drag this trailer around with my friend's belongings in it. When in doubt, check again!

 

[timothyr1014]

i hear you on that one mel.and goofy...more than anything I am kicking myself for the close call...as a former OTR driver, and a GA pilot I am a die hard believer that 95% of all "accidents" are really caused by negligence that could have been prevented by a proper pre-trip/flight. I learned to haul heavy from an old timer who lived by the rule that once you are grossing more than 10k you are a weapon of mass destruction to anything else on the road - In as much as I have no problem walking the line and being near the limit, it was a very sobering reality that the 7~10 mins I saved could have easily cost someone their life.

As for the setting the hitch on the ball, I can relate...anytime I hitch up (accept this time) people look at me funny as I use the tounge jack to start lifting the back of the truck.