How easy is it to turn over a tanker ? Half loaded on a side slope ? Ground giving way on one side on a building site ? Too fast around a bend ? With modern air suspension ? I’d like to hear about real world experience rather than theory as I’d rather not find out for myself.
Driving with a moving load has its own characteristics depending on how it’s being driven!! Fill a bottle half full and move it around to mimic being transported and watch how the liquid moves and imagine its impact on the rest of the carriage.
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Don’t drive like a d i c k and you’ll be Ok. You dont teararse round in a tank - you take your time and you “feel” whats going on , you leave room to come to a stop and you don’t cane it away from red lights and roundabouts . Anticipation and space are what you need lots of .
Totally advanced thinking is required. Even though tankers are fitted with baffle plates you can still fell the load. I have actually used the motion of the liquid to help me get out of a bogged in wheel by simply rocking the vehicle and allowing the liquid to push me forward. So it can also have benefits.
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Not all tanks have baffles. Multi compartment road barrels shouldn’t have much ullage so will behave as a solid load. A 24,000 container tank with a 18,000litre load at 24 ton will be very lively!
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Where i used to work we carried a lot of high SG loads such as caustic/sulphuric which was fine in an acid barrel, we also used to have a load of 30000 ltr GP tanks as well for flexibility. If you’ve got a load with a high SG in a GP barrel it’s important that when you come screeching to a stop that you DO NOT release the pressure on the footbrake until the load has finished “slopping” or you’ll find yourself joining the car in front! 
Moving loads take a bit of getting used to, not just for cornering but accelerating and braking are affected, just take your time and ‘feel’ the load and what its doing.
Cornering is 90% common sense whatever you drive, smooth the order of the day, approach a corner with gentle continuous deceleration so you arn’t entering a bend with the load already at tidal wave state due to poor driving techniques and you’ll be fine, if you’ve braked heavily just before a bend not only will you have side slop but also the load surging from end to end just as you take the corner.
Roundabouts you have to account for the pendulum effect more than on other loads, for the extra weight as the load surges at a different rate to the vehicles natural pendulum.
Lots of tankers have anti roll auto braking, and yes you can feel it come into play, but it isn’t the default answer because that isn’t going to take surge effect into account.
You can learn a lot just by standing back and looking at the vehicle, there’s a reason fuel tanker drivers can corner as if on rails is because the centre of gravity is low to begin with, compare with a typical powder tanker, especially tipping tankers and even worse container tanks where the CoG is much higher, and if the load is dry where it’s right to the top of an already higher/larger tank, no slop involved but the CoG will be higher still.
It’s the dead weights involved that surprise some drivers who have come off more normal work, especially parcel/supermarket, as in every part of transport if you respect what’s involved you’ll be ok.
Tankers have improved so much over the years. Roll overs were far more common years ago but with modern technology anyone with half a brain should not roll one over.
I first drove them in the late 70’s and latterly in 2012 and the difference was night and day. I remember getting shown a video in the early 80’s made by BP or Shell and it showed an artic basically going round in a circle. If my memory served me well the tip over point was just 8 mph.
I remember driving a partly loaded bitumen tanker and stopped at a giveway sign, then the load shot forward and I ended up halfway across the junction! 
Powder tanks were never a problem though.
Pete.
jakethesnake:
Tankers have improved so much over the years. Roll overs were far more common years ago but with modern technology anyone with half a brain should not roll one over.
I first drove them in the late 70’s and latterly in 2012 and the difference was night and day. I remember getting shown a video in the early 80’s made by BP or Shell and it showed an artic basically going round in a circle. If my memory served me well the tip over point was just 8 mph.
yep, we had the demo tanker come into kingsbury terminal in the 90’s, the trailer had stabiliers on it and if I recall correctly between 8/10 mph was the point of tip as it circled a few times to get the swill on the load.
m.a.n rules:
jakethesnake:
Tankers have improved so much over the years. Roll overs were far more common years ago but with modern technology anyone with half a brain should not roll one over.
I first drove them in the late 70’s and latterly in 2012 and the difference was night and day. I remember getting shown a video in the early 80’s made by BP or Shell and it showed an artic basically going round in a circle. If my memory served me well the tip over point was just 8 mph.yep, we had the demo tanker come into kingsbury terminal in the 90’s, the trailer had stabiliers on it and if I recall correctly between 8/10 mph was the point of tip as it circled a few times to get the swill on the load.
Kingsbury you say, can you remind Smithy at Conoco i’m still waiting for me phone call, was up for the next job sometime around 1983, must be somewhere near the top of the list now 
m.a.n rules:
jakethesnake:
Tankers have improved so much over the years. Roll overs were far more common years ago but with modern technology anyone with half a brain should not roll one over.
I first drove them in the late 70’s and latterly in 2012 and the difference was night and day. I remember getting shown a video in the early 80’s made by BP or Shell and it showed an artic basically going round in a circle. If my memory served me well the tip over point was just 8 mph.yep, we had the demo tanker come into kingsbury terminal in the 90’s, the trailer had stabiliers on it and if I recall correctly between 8/10 mph was the point of tip as it circled a few times to get the swill on the load.
Yep, I did not say but you are quite right the one in the video I saw used stabilisers.
Kingsbury you say, can you remind Smithy at Conoco i’m still waiting for me phone call, was up for the next job sometime around 1983, must be somewhere near the top of the list now. quote juddian
before my time mate, but as i’m sure you are aware it was a dead mans shoes job in them days. my dad was on for Texaco (regent to begin with) and he told me for years I would be the next one in but you had to earn your medals first. and he was the bloody branch secretary for the union.
to be honest it was the best paying job I’ve had (9 yrs) but the most boring,then Europe came knocking end of story no regrets 
Yeah i always guessed it was a long shot, why he told me they would be in contact i have no idea.
Luckily i went into other specialist work, eventually cold called somewhere completely different and into a DMS job of me own.
The thing with those exceptionally well paid jobs is not to ■■■■ the money up the wall, or imagine that it will last forever, they never do, but to use the money to set yourself up, pay mortgages off etc, so when it comes to and end you arn’t up queer street.
The thing with those exceptionally well paid jobs is not to ■■■■ the money up the wall, or imagine that it will last forever, they never do, but to use the money to set yourself up, pay mortgages off etc, so when it comes to and end you arn’t up queer street.
I personaly didn’t prosper that much for 9yrs on the tanks but me dad done very well. started with regent in 63 took redundancy in 83 when the transition to subbies started.
they were mortgage free and very comfortable in their late 40’s and still are in their 80’s all down to hard work and good companies to work for…
Juddian:
Yeah i always guessed it was a long shot, why he told me they would be in contact i have no idea.
Luckily i went into other specialist work, eventually cold called somewhere completely different and into a DMS job of me own.The thing with those exceptionally well paid jobs is not to ■■■■ the money up the wall, or imagine that it will last forever, they never do, but to use the money to set yourself up, pay mortgages off etc, so when it comes to and end you arn’t up queer street.
Quite right Juddian. Tanker work enabled me to purchase my first property amongst other things but it really set me up as I made a grear profit when I sold.
It did not end for me though. I ended it by leaving and progressed to better things which in turn enabled me to retire early and now live very comfortably thankfully spending most of my time out of the UK.
the maoster:
Where i used to work we carried a lot of high SG loads such as caustic/sulphuric which was fine in an acid barrel, we also used to have a load of 30000 ltr GP tanks as well for flexibility. If you’ve got a load with a high SG in a GP barrel it’s important that when you come screeching to a stop that you DO NOT release the pressure on the footbrake until the load has finished “slopping” or you’ll find yourself joining the car in front!
The implication with high SG loads is that they hit the weight limit of the vehicle long before they hit the capacity/volume limit of the tank, so put into a uncompartmented GP tanker you’d have a lot of ullage left and a very large free surface area at the top of a heavy product, and that’s what will cause the wild surges and sloshing.
I forget the rules but I’m sure they clamped down on such practices, with it being considered an insecure load.
Rjan:
the maoster:
Where i used to work we carried a lot of high SG loads such as caustic/sulphuric which was fine in an acid barrel, we also used to have a load of 30000 ltr GP tanks as well for flexibility. If you’ve got a load with a high SG in a GP barrel it’s important that when you come screeching to a stop that you DO NOT release the pressure on the footbrake until the load has finished “slopping” or you’ll find yourself joining the car in front!The implication with high SG loads is that they hit the weight limit of the vehicle long before they hit the capacity/volume limit of the tank, so put into a uncompartmented GP tanker you’d have a lot of ullage left and a very large free surface area at the top of a heavy product, and that’s what will cause the wild surges and sloshing.
I forget the rules but I’m sure they clamped down on such practices, with it being considered an insecure load.
The unbaffled container tanks we used were awful. Gave the step frame skellies a hell of a battering too. Cracks on the “arms” with the twistlocks were common. Cracks on the swan-necks sometimes too.
Over ten yrs ago now, so if the regs have changed it’s for the best. Baffleless tanks were specced to avoid cross contamination between loads. Lots of awkward corners to clean around the baffles.
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Rjan:
the maoster:
Where i used to work we carried a lot of high SG loads such as caustic/sulphuric which was fine in an acid barrel, we also used to have a load of 30000 ltr GP tanks as well for flexibility. If you’ve got a load with a high SG in a GP barrel it’s important that when you come screeching to a stop that you DO NOT release the pressure on the footbrake until the load has finished “slopping” or you’ll find yourself joining the car in front!The implication with high SG loads is that they hit the weight limit of the vehicle long before they hit the capacity/volume limit of the tank, so put into a uncompartmented GP tanker you’d have a lot of ullage left and a very large free surface area at the top of a heavy product, and that’s what will cause the wild surges and sloshing.
I forget the rules but I’m sure they clamped down on such practices, with it being considered an insecure load.
I agree with you Rjan , somewhere in The recesses of my mind I sort of recall a maximum ullage percentage figure but as I’ve slept since then it’s gone! DieselDave would no doubt be able to furnish us with the figure.
Regardless though that’s all very well in classroom world but as we all know real world sometimes steps in, an example being that I’d regularly load to max weight with MEG (monethyleneglycol before Winseer jumps in ) and I’d go off and fill British Gas’s tanks up with a 1000 litres here, a 1000 litres there all around Kent or Devon or elsewhere until empty, this usually took about .4 days to do but as you can imagine the ullage increased every time.
Done a few shifts for my mate pulling trailers out of immingham, and I’m not sure which school of driving these tanker drivers went to, but they fly out of the terminal with no consideration to anyone else on the road, racing up to the lights and braking at the last minute, 3 or 4 will run bumper to bumper along the A160 towards the A180, how one of them hasn’t rolled on the roundabout is a miracle.
Maybe it’s time the U.K. took a leaf out of the German and French transport regs and ADR loads run 50mph max with no less than 50mtrs behind another ADR carrying vehicle.