Wide loads!! A very nasty accident,,,,,,,

The image is on my Member Pics and I'll try and post it here. I couldn't crop the pic so I don't know what it will look like on here......might be a bit lacking in detail, plus it's not a good copy - glossy paper @#@$$@

!MPG:6!

Bilbo

But why stop, and what difference would it have made ??

Woulda , Coulda, Shoulda

The fact remains that the culvert wasn't marked properly. I would assume he wouldn't have been travelling all that quick if he was off the side of the road , obviously still quick enough to cause a fair amount of damage.

He could have EASILY been a few seconds later and pulled off , at speed , straight into the culvert, with HUGE consequences.

IMO, and thats all it is , its not whether this guy pulled off the road and stopped, or not , its the fact that a Culvert is Unmarked.

HOw much for the roofrack?

Terrible way to finish a holiday! But it could have been a lot worse I would suggest. Can't imagine how anyone would have got hurt in this one though? Dam lucky it didn't roll but that might be the benefit of a trailer to hold it back.

Kind regards

Caused by incorrect wheel aligment, too much toe out by the looks of it.

Poor bugger, what a cruddy way to end a holiday.

Bilbo
I'm NOT GUILTY
On a serious note though these are the types of incidents we don't want , Sometimes it takes a lot to try and get through to some drivers and only a few seconds of time to do it ,and I not directing my comment directly at the one posted about, basicly he did the right thing ..well almost but someone put an unmarked culvert there, I would be sueing the authorities responsible for the culvert,
I had a real smart ar#e in a red Falcon the other day give me the finger through the windscreen because I was trying to warn him that a truck was about to swing wide at an intersection, for any of you that are not sure what to do and what your required to i have this link for you , from Qld

Site Link

for WA Read section d (i) at the bottom

ROAD TRAFFIC CODE 2000 - REG 272
Obedience to police or authorised persons
272 . Obedience to police or authorised persons

(1) Every pedestrian and driver shall obey the signal by hand or the reasonable oral direction given by a member of the Police Force or—

(a) an authorised person, if the signal or direction given by him or her is given for the purpose of ensuring the safety, or facilitating the movement, of traffic or persons at or near the scene of an incident resulting in a dangerous situation;
(b) an authorised person, if the signal or direction given by him or her is given for the purpose of facilitating the movement of a fire engine or other emergency vehicle;

(c) an authorised person, if the signal given by him or her is given for the purpose of facilitating the movement of an ambulance that is an emergency vehicle; or

(d) an authorised person, if the signal or direction given by that person is given —

(i) for the purpose of facilitating the movement of an oversize vehicle being escorted by an accredited pilot; and

(ii) while the authorised person is wearing a reflective vest of a type approved by the Commissioner of Police by notice published in the Gazette ,

notwithstanding that the signal or oral direction given by any of them appears to require the pedestrian or driver to act in contravention of these regulations.

Points: 3 (driver)

Modified penalty: 2 PU (driver or pedestrian)

So Bilbo ya better behave....lol

Doug

Culvert and embankment looks new?? So I would assume that its the new section being built around Caiguna and Cocklebiddy and someone has not installed roadside markers as yet.

Just for "Flappa",

Ya know, when I wrote this thread, I just knew, I could just feel it my water, I had a sixth sense that somebody (I was tempted to use another adjective there) would reply and say 'It's the fault of the Roads Dept, or the Shire, or The West Australian Government, or him, or her, or,,,,,,,,"

It's not much use discussing that point at the funeral is it!! All the sueing, lawyers, money in the world won't bring yer wife and kids back will it!

If he had have stopped, it wouldn't have made any difference if the culvert was marked or not - he wouldn't have a smashed car or a damaged wife would he!

"Woulda, coulda and shoulda" can also be applied to the people resonsible for marking the culvert. "Woulda marked it but we never got round to it, shoulda marked it but we ran outta marking poles, shoulda marked it in case someone DRIVES DOWN THE CULVERT!!"

It's always someone elses fault - but it's too late for that when we're dead.

Play safe is a better option.

I wrote the piece to highlight what can happen, - what did happen - when things don't go as they should do. In this case the culvert wasn't marked. That's a problem. The point is that we all, all of us, take the view that things will be as they should be.

This is a classic case that often things are not as they should be and things can go badly wrong when we take things for granted.

Just a lesson for us all.

Here endeth the lesson and here starteth the schittfight.

Bilbo

Bilbo. That was a very good cautionary post that I think had some very ordinary responses to.
Like you, I travel the ouback roads extensively, my area is in W.Qld. where triple trailer (75000l.) oil tankers travel on single lane bitumen or merely gravel roads.
There is one rule for these rigs, and one rule only. You see them (or the dust) approaching, and either stop or pull off to the inside of the guide posts, in which case look out for any unseen washaway.
The fact that this was an unmarked culvert doesnt mean a squirt, many arn't and there are also many other spots where may think it is safe to continue barrelling along with one of these long/wide rigs approaching, just simply getting off the road edge to avoid it can or will result in what this poor bugger copped.
Causeway crossings are another case in point, they are nearly always more narrow than the approaches. I have seen a very nasty rollover with a vehicle/van combination that tried to pass a large truck on one.
cheers furph

Looking at the original photo it seems the driver (female?) is a long way from the black top!Is this correct or just an allusion. That far from the hard stuff I would have had the tyres down to 18 psi. :-)Tongue in cheek.
Niffty
Perth

I think it pretty much impossible to mark every road hazard in the country.

Even when hazards are marked, people ignore them - ever seen anyone run a red light, for example?

In this case it's just plain bad luck. The vehicle dropped into an unmarked culvert, but there could have equally easily been a boulder there, an erosion ditch, a dead cow, a tree stump, etc.

Cops = genuinely big load. Sit on Ch40 and listen to what the pilot vehicle says. Don't be an idiot BUT......don't overreact either. It's not a firebreathing monster, just another vehicle travelling on the road that is wider than usual. Assess each one as you approach and don't make hard and fast rules up - that's likely to cause more accidents.

Watching timid or overcautious drivers to me is just like watching someone using a dangerous power tool who is afraid of it. It's the surest way of coming to grief.

Having driven many kms as escort for wide farm machinery, it amazes me that every trip there will be one idiot who won't slow down. Imagine if they came to grief - they'd blame us for being on the road (wide load). We share the road with all types of transport; some people think they own the road and don't use any common sense. I'm not saying this was the case with the accident in question - slowing down and pulling onto the edge is most people's response - really just bad luck, but if the driver couldn't see, stopping would have been wise (easy with hindsight). Yes, using channel 40 helps.

An interesting set of responses to this warning.

I have always tried to remember the bloke at a Defensive Driving course in New Zulund 30 years ago, who said sort of: "Does not matter who is in the wrong - you don't want an accident. If you drive as if everyone else is incompetent, then you have a better chance of not having an accident".

Yes - I'm incompetent too, but do try to act on the cautious side when I see trouble coming. You get the hint when the pilot pushes you off the road and signals to stop (especially when its a cop), and with others I try to assess the width of the load & road and figure whether to stop.

Certainly if I choose to drive slowly along the edge (which is illegal anyway) to let someone pass me or to clear a wide load, the managing partner watches the edge like a hawk. Looking at this photo, maybe I will be a lot more conservative as hidden traps have not been high on my radar.

Thanks for posting the warning Bilbo
Max

I dont mean to sound Mean but I dont believe the culvert was invisable. It is there because there is a creek flowing through there which is pretty visable . the decent seating position would have made it clearer and that embankment is fairly steep to continue driving on rather than stopping. Sure marking it may have helped but I would hazard a guess that maybe not as to drive into that I suspect they were watching the RT rather than the road which would lead to the initial thinking it was invisable . I have made stuffups myself due to inatention. Sure it is bad luck but as with alot of accidents it has both a cause and contributing factors

Another facet of the road trains, particularly the ones north of Charters Towers which seem to be travelling 'hoppers,' they are quite capable of what I call 'whip-sawing' if the driver turns the steering wheel too quickly to the left and the right. The movement seems to get bigger as it travels down the rig. We pulled over and stopped every time we saw one coming toward us on the single lane bitumen because among other things there was no space to keep travelling. There were reflector posts every 100? mtrs and probably about 1mtr from the edge of the road and culverts at right angles between them, so no choice, we stopped. I have never been so terrified in my life as when I saw one of them coming around a bend a short distance ahead, so glad I wasn't driving from the drivers' side.
OzeSheila.

Not to mention the poor visibility from the GU's cockpit. It's the only thing that particularly bothers me about ours, driving over waterbars is the biggest problem as i can't see anything in the dip, i have to drive over every one at snails pace as any hazard that might be there i am going to drive straight into. I'm comparing this to troopies where you feel like you're sitting on the car rather than in it. Wouldn't be surprised if the guy just looked away for a second and by the time he looked back it was invisible.

Don't die defending your rights.