Stop Rear-ending Our Trucks!

ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:

Keith Tanner said:

ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) said:

When I was in the paving business road crews were hit regularly. Like once a month or so, usually at night. The giant, monster paving equipment surrounded by billions of flood lights, other dump trucks, guys with flashlights and flags...those things.  The company started running a follow truck on each crew, usually an older F250 flat bed, that had giant plastic crush blocks hung off the back. They were probably a 24" tall and about 6' long and slightly wider than the truck. They were similar construction to the ones you see on bridge abutments sometimes. All the truck did was follow the equipment at about 2 car lengths back with a ton flashing lights and take the hit when someone drove up their ass. They had a couple get hit at over 60mph estimated.

That large a system isn't practical on anything else, but maybe someone makes a smaller absorbent system that would help minimize impact severity for your personnel 

My wife is in the highway construction business and "bumper trucks" are a requirement for every job. They're a little bigger and further back than what you describe and usually placed at the start of the job. It's amazing how often people hit construction equipment. It really lowers your opinion of the average driver, and half of them are worse than average.

Georgia safety standards are somewhat lower than other states, as everyone is currently aware. LOL.

Burn!

I checked with Janel. On jobs where they close lanes, there's a row of water or sand filled barrels so the idiot never gets as far as the trucks. It's the mobile jobs where they use the trucks, and they're officially "impact attenuators". CDOT pays for them as it's a state requirement. However, they're not a requirement for striping crews but all the stripers run them because they're tired of losing half million dollar trucks.

chaparral said:

Switch to a minivan that'll sacrifice itself more effectively than your pickup trucks did. It has a unibody with no difficult-to-crush frame behind the cabin, and continuous structure all the way back.

Sure.  Which minivans can carry the payload of a 3/4T service truck (we use a big chunk of the GVWR), often over oilfield roads?  Oh, and can carry a trailer for the occasional heavy/bulky stuff?

In reply to fanfoy :

OK, if she stopped in the left lane of a highway, then I agree she was at fault. That part was missing from the earlier post.

I have a tow hitch on the back of my truck. Didn't keep me from getting hit by the idiot driving a 95 Camaro on bald tires and no insurance when he careened around the corner making a right hand turn onto the street where I was sitting at a stop sign. Hit my Rear Driver side tire, fender, and bumper and he managed to somehow do a 180 with his nose still under my truck.

I was hauling a 32ft extension ladder once and it was hanging 8ft past my bed with red flag on it. Sitting at a stoplight and some idiot put the hood of her shiny new Camry about 3ft under the ladder... If she hasn't stopped, ladder would've probably gone through her windshield and smacked her in the face. Fortunately no contact was made.

Can't fix stupid.

Kind of the opposite of Appleseed's suggestion, but:

SkinnyG (Forum Supporter) said:

bobzilla said:  Only drive at night on deserted highways 

On a dark, desert highway.  With Cool Whip in your hair.