That is dreadful. You never like to hear such distressing news but this close to Christmas makes it seem worse. If the driver was alone in the bin lorry and did suffer a heart attack then I hope he can make a full recovery, although he will have to live with this accident for the rest of his life. Poor sod!
It’s just another very sad indication of how flimsy life is. Peoples lives lost, families lives ruined, driver & his families life in tatters regardless of how or why it happened.
Enjoy every minute you have, you really never know when it’s going to end.
My wife and wee lassie came out of Queen Street station just over an hour before it happened to go to a Pantomime. I knew they were in Glasgow, but was unsure of the times. I was a bit frantic trying to get through to them, but eventually the wife answered. What a massive relief it was.
This tragic accident makes you realise just how fragile all our lives are. It certainly made me cuddle my wee lassie a bit tighter when I finished my shift tonight.
My deepest condolences to anyone reading this who was effected by the tragedy.
What terrible thing no matter what time of year.
Condolences to all.
RIP to those who perished, life is too fragile! Hope the driver is ok, but will sadly have to live with this on his concience, poor soul! Many families lives in tatters and a few days before Xmas too! Sincere condolences to GLASGOW TOO at this horrid time 
muckles:
Boo9729:
Awful thing to happen so close to xmas and can’t imagine the pain and suffering all those affected families are going through both this xmas and every xmas from now onNot being familiar with the set up for work crews on those, but would there not be more than 1 person in the cab??
I think that depends on the work, I believe residential still have a driver and a couple of operative, but commercial tends to be driver only.
George Ieronymdis, owner of the Elia Greek Restaurant on George Square, said he had been told that three of the bin lorry’s crew were seen jumping from the vehicle and holding their heads in their hands, looking devastated.
Very difficult to stop a vehicle like this if you are in the cab, but not in the driver’s seat. And with an auto transmission, it’s going to have to hit something very substantial to make it stop, if the driver has passed out with his foot on the accelerator.
Buses, with a similar transmission, have an external engine stop (although it’s difficult to see how this is supposed to be reached if the bus is actually moving). Is there a case for an engine kill switch that can be accessed by passengers in a dust cart cab?
In factories etc most machines have a big red ‘STOP’ button which can be easily accessed by anyone nearby, not just the machine operator.
Is the handbrake out of passenger reach on these trucks.
Surely the handbrake would have been a start since the vehicle had a crew in it, unlike buses, if the handbrake is on the left of the driver so could have been reached by the crew. (The bin lorries I drove had the handbrake and RND buttons to the left of the driver)
RIP to all affected, tragic news.
I suspect that the handbrake wouldn’t be enough to stall the truck…taking it out of ‘Drive’ might be a possibility, but I don’t know if it’s possible to do this if the engine is under power, or if the bin operatives would know how to do this.
If the handbrake was accesible its crazy that 3 crew members where not trained in what to do in an emergency.
This doesnt detract from the sad losses and pain the families are suffering but in the future it may open up a path of litigation for the bereaved.
Bear in mind that the crew members were just three guys at work, then in the space of a few seconds they were faced with the driver clutching his chest and collapsing over the steering wheel with his foot on the gas, putting all of them in potential danger in an instant. It’s very easy to sit at your keyboard and say “they should have done this or that”, but could you - any of you - say in all honesty that you’d have been thinking that clearly in a similar situation? I know I wouldn’t have been.
For me it would be my first option, in order to reduce speed. All hearsay really at the moment though.
Dipper_Dave:
For me it would be my first option, in order to reduce speed. All hearsay really at the moment though.
You say that (and I can see why, in fairness), but it doesn’t make any allowances for the fact that you haven’t been transported from being at work to being in the crazily bucking cab of an out of control bin wagon which is suddenly driverless, bouncing over kerbs and knocking over traffic lights, street furniture and pedestrians like skittles, in the time it takes to click your fingers. It’d take me a while to come to terms with that if I was the man in the passenger seat, much more so than if I’m sat peacefully in my computer chair having a cup of tea before I go to bed.
True, Just one of the things that may be looked at for the future.
Im not trying to blame anyone for this as this is a sensitive thread.
Didnt the bin wagon travel quite a long way before lives where lost.
All seems a bit strange. Bin truck travelling along probably at about 10 / 15mph, driver takes a ill turn, crew then have enough time to diagnose the driver, weigh up the developing situation as a whole and then make a decision to jump out.
ajt:
All seems a bit strange. Bin truck travelling along probably at about 10 / 15mph, driver takes a ill turn, crew then have enough time to diagnose the driver, weigh up the developing situation as a whole and then make a decision to jump out.
Eyewitnesses reports say it was going substantially quicker than 10-15mph more like flat out. Looking at the map on Sky News yesterday from where it hit the first pedestrian to where it ended up smashing into that taxi and hotel it traveled a long way indeed.
Eyewitnesses said it took out the traffic lights near Greggs and then mounted the pavement and more or less traveled down that, out of control hitting pedestrians some who were oblivious to the fact it was behind them and didn’t have time to do anything until it smashed into the hotel.
The taxi took a hell of a hit by the looks of it too. I just hope nobody was in it.
The two crew didn’t get out until the vehicle had stopped according to what Ive read.
Like its been said above, its very easy as a professional driver to sit at a keyboard and say “I’d have done this and that”. The crew probably weren’t drivers, weren’t expecting to have their vehicle go out of control, expecting to witness families being mown down… etc etc.
The lorry was fast enough to wipe out several traffic lights, and push a car a fair distance. This wasn’t just rolling, this was motoring.
A witness said the driver of the silver taxi appeared to have a broken neck , was pale white and was not moving. The roof was cut off by the fire brigade to extract him. Thats some force to break a neck in a vehicle crash.
Ive personally witnessed a senior A&E nurse freeze in an emergency situation, as she wasn’t “in the zone”, she was enjoying her holiday and not expecting to have to attend to man with his skull split open. I had to do it instead, and I have very little first aid training.
People react differently in intense emergency situations and I would imagine the two crew didn’t even realise what was happening until it was too late. If they could have done something, Im sure they would have done everything in their power to do it.
Its a terrible accident and Im sure the crew and the driver will need some serious help to get through it. I don’t know if I could ever get in a vehicle again if I’d been in that position.
Dipper_Dave:
True, Just one of the things that may be looked at for the future.Im not trying to blame anyone for this as this is a sensitive thread.
Didnt the bin wagon travel quite a long way before lives where lost.
Most of the crews on bin Lorry’s hav’nt got a clue how to drive, (the driver is the captain of the ship) probably wouldn’t have a clue where the handbrake was, let alone how to pull it on in a terrifying situation.
If they try to train them up on pulling the handbrake on, that opens another can of worms when the driver shouts to his mate in the cab “just let the brake off & let her roll a bit” or one of them plays silly buggers & pulls it on (for a laugh) believe or not, these things can & do happen on the bins.
A crew member who has a licence. might have reacted quickly enough to stop it, but a non driver wouldn’t have had a chance.
The investigation will see the truth & hopefully eliminate all the risks then stop it happening again.
109LWB:
The two crew didn’t get out until the vehicle had stopped according to what Ive read.Like its been said above, its very easy as a professional driver to sit at a keyboard and say “I’d have done this and that”.
Exactly. We’ve had posts on here in the past on threads discussing accidents where people claim that in the event of an accident where they were going to rear end something they would leap from the driver’s seat onto the bunk!! They clearly have never been in an accident because they wouldn’t, it all happens to fast.