Ok, we all must’ve done some daft things in our less experienced days. I’ll give you an example of what i did years ago not long after passing my test.
I’d got a job driving an artic tipper and one of our regular loads was dust which was loaded from chute overhead, with the loadie calling you forward every few seconds as the trailer filled up. I pulled away from the quarry at 44t but the front felt really heavy. Anyway i got to the unloading site (another quarry) and sure enough there was so much weight on the front the ram couldn’t cope. It only went half way up. A little bit trickled out the back but not much. I pulled forward and then reversed at speed, hit the brakes to try to shoot the load backwards but no, it was stuck. Phoned the boss and explained, he said ‘There’s a shovel on the trailer, start digging.’ Oh, thanks’ i said.
I was contemplating this unhappy news when i noticed that the quarry was on 2 levels with a steepish ramp connecting them, and my brain started ticking and i thought ‘I wonder…?’ All a question of angles really. If the lorry is facing uphill, starting off at a 30 degree angle, even if the body only reaches 45 degrees, add that together and it should be enough to move this bloody load! Clever eh?
So, i closed the tailgate, trundled over to this ramp, handbrake, PTO and engage! Up she goes, slowly…getting higher…still no movement…higher…ram reaching it’s maximum now…little bit more… small sliding sound…and then WHUUUMP!!! The whole bloody lot crashes against the tailboard, the drive axle lifts off the ground, the lorry is starting to go sideways, i slam the lever down, the body comes down, the drive axle is back on terra firma, the lorry settles down and i need a change of underpants.
But i’ve got a smile on my face cos now i can tip. 
The machine driver who wandered over for a nose however, didn’t have a smile on his face. Don’t think he could actually speak mind cos he didn’t say anything. Just sort of stared. I gave him a friendly wave and smiled sheepishly, reversed back and tipped no problem. Wahey!
But i often think back to that day and i have every sympathy for the machine driver.
