TL;DR driver forgot to raise the landing legs and dragged the pad more than half a mile. Not hyperbole.
Disp here. We run intermodal. Had out of our drivers run out with a bare chassis to run to the port for his loaded. A few minutes later, another driver comes running in saying whoever just left had his legs down and he’s dragging the pad.
We have a crush gravel yard so we have quarter inch steel sheets, 2ft by 8ft to land on. This rocket surgeon pulled all the way out of the yard and a good half mile down the road before we got ahold of him. His response, when I told him what he was doing; “On… THAT’S what that noise was. He’s in a daycab so there was no way he didn’t hear anything… Anyways Thankfully we got him before he tore the legs out from under it and no one else was hit with anything. And he’s tight on time so he just had to raise and run.
I got 2 other drivers and a pick up to help load up and return the landing pad to the yard. I just knew one of these guys was going to get hurt moving this thing, but we pulled it off safely. And we measured it; More than half a mile’s travel.
This guy isn’t a bad driver. Sometimes loses his cool over dumb shit. He’s forgotten simple things before, like paperwork or something. But this is the first time it’s been something big. I don’t want to hem the guy up, but this could have been serious. And I know our safety guy is a bit of a dick, but sometimes he kinda has to be. This is definitely something safety is going to want to know about. Should I say something? Or try and keep this inhouse? I welcome all comments, even the ones where I get told to eat shit.
