Oblivious Trucker.

[bobb]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/V1LM8TtSLZ0&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/V1LM8TtSLZ0&rel=1</a> shot in Melbourne shows exactly how this can happen.

Apologies if it's already been posted....

[LittleWheelsandBig]

You could see the truck driver countersteering to keep the truck running somewhat straight.

[onb]

What we still don't seem to know is, how did it happen?

ands surely, when it happened, there was a jolt or bang or both 

or an overwhelming smell of shit.

[Jaded]

 

[hatler]

A wet road would possibly completely prevent the tyres from burning/smelling.

[PhilO]

What we still don't seem to know is, how did it happen?

ands surely, when it happened, there was a jolt or bang or both 

or an overwhelming smell of shit.

A friend once passed on a tale from a friend of his who was a truck driver in Cumbria...

Apparently, many years ago he was driving a heavily loaded truck up the A6 near Shap (in the days before the motorway), and the engine was struggling a bit so he went for the down-change... There was a bit of a jolt, which he put down to a fluffed gearchange on his part (this being a non-synchromesh gearbox).

Several miles later, he was flagged down and found a car under the rear of his trailer - the driver had been following too close and had got his bonnet  hooked when he hit the brakes to late as the truck lurched during the gear change.

I'm told the interior of the car 'smelled distinctly brown'. 

[1gear]

No!  No no no no no! Ridiculous!

How can you come to such a conclusion?

How did that car come to be there?  Was it never in sight?  I find that hard to believe.  And I know trucks are powerful, but pushing a ton of metal sideways provides some resistance.  Was the driver so dim that he didn't realise he was having to puch his engine a bit harder than usual? 

Utterly unacceptable.  Can this be appealed for being so ridiculous?

I doubt it. Motorway driving = put foot on floor and ride the limiter.

Pushing a small car weighing just less than a ton, on a wet road, with an empty trailer would only make the slightest difference to the truck considering that it is capable of hauling 30tons or more.

It is the acceptance that it is possible to just 'not see' another road user makes a collision OK.

He would have most probably been on cruise control, and the truck itself would have picked up the engine revs or even changed gear.
A truck my dad had would even put the engine brake on, which would come in in steps and change down so it was on fully to keep it at the speed set.

If you think of airflow, the relative speed, etc., it is likely that any odour would be wafted out under the vehicles rather than up through the vents.

I take the point, but you get an awful lot of ambient aroma in through any ventilation system, even if it isn't acrid and right under the grille.  I'm not buying it.

It might well have been the smell after a while that gave it away. Im not sure where the air intake is on the Daf XF, infact from watching the video again its not on the front. Its on the black right hand side of the cab, which could be another reason why he didnt smell it right away.

[Mr Larrington]

There was a carbon copy of this prang and/or the one referenced by Bobb up there ^^ at J7 of the M11 a couple of years ago.  The only difference was the lorry driver noticed that he'd just torpedoed amidships a brand-new S-class, but it still took him several hundred yards to stop.

[bobb]

Yeah, I think the trucker in the Melbourne clip realised what had happened and was trying to stop. You'd have to be really deaf not to hear all that tyre noise! (Although I appreciate it can be noisy in the cab of a truck)

[Mr Larrington]

Especially noisy in a tunnel, I expect.