Car Transporters and Damaged Cars

[banburydan]

Juddian:
No, the pay rate won’t be dropping cos Stobart has the job, he’ll leave it well alone because he’s no fool, he didn’t get where he is today by being one.

You can’t put steering wheel attendants in transporters, if you do there will be a pile of damage to sort out and more rolled trucks than you can shake a stick at, it simply doesn’t work like that.

It takes years to become fully competent at the job, indeed as one poster mentions above about getting a new vehicle, a new type of body can take a 10+ year experienced transporter driver a good 12 months to get fully aquainted with…and regardless how many years you’ve been doing it you are still learning.

Its a minority of drivers who are still in the job 12 months after starting, its not for everyone, its hard, skilled, filthy and exhausting work, hot and cold depending, try loading 11 at a dockside in a blizzard…and you get hurt regularly.

I couldn’t believe my eyes today when I saw a Stobarts transporter on either the M40 or A34 loaded up with Freelanders and Evoques, presumably out of Halewood. So they are making moves into that game…

[juddian]

BanburyDan:

Juddian:

I couldn’t believe my eyes today when I saw a Stobarts transporter on either the M40 or A34 loaded up with Freelanders and Evoques, presumably out of Halewood. So they are making moves into that game…

Autologic vehicles and drivers, taken over by Stobbies a few weeks ago, they won’t be Stobs drivers as such, and they won’t be on Stobby terms and conditions either.

[gouls]

iangam:

Juddian:
oooh, going to be expensive…thats some motor to lose from a tow, 7 x RR’s, gross around 43t ,and about £350k+'s worth of load alone, all cars going to be seriously damaged if not totalled.

half a £million all in?

Glad for the lorry driver that it wasn’t his mistake, anyone know which transporter company yet?

Automove/STVA

Ouch, I seem to remember one of the Brum drivers moved to another depot and flipped one over soon after, he had been on artics for years and but had to transfer to drags when he moved, made a bit of a mess of himself and spent nearly a year on the sick.

[gouls]

Just remembered, this old girl made it onto News at Ten, the day Rover went belly up it was filmed pulling a load out the gates,
wonder if matey got his car bonus

C & C Ipswich by Glen TK2, on Flickr

[tc_trans]

heres a little load I had on mine a few years back.

we used to do quite a bit of car auction work, and had been known to once or twice use a greasy glove on certain bits of bodywork if a strap had broken… wink

[jayeastanglia]

kevchalluk:
Range Rover transporter lorry crash on A34 shuts road

No other vehicles were involved but there was “extensive damage to the road surface and barrier”.

An earlier police message on Twitter described the scene as having “lots of expensive Range Rovers all over the road”.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-19880405

and thats one very expensive pile up as 3 of them range rovers were the brand new model(405) 3 sports and the others were discoverys… insurance company will love that one

[dieseldog66]

I have been informed the above vehicle was on a suspended tow at the time after breaking down.

[lank]

Found this on the Daily Mail website. Found it an interesting example, (typical of the DM), of a journalist talking completely out of his backside without making any attempt to establish the facts.

For the benefit of the DM, just a few FACTS to consider

The lorry was travelling Southbound…

Maybe could be mentioned that it was on the back of a wrecker. May be integral to the story…

Only some of the vehicles on board were Range Rovers, and a Sport or Discovery are certainly not £70k+ each…

Still, why let boring things like facts get in the way of a good story…

An on-road vehicle! Lorry carrying brand new Range Rovers crashes and scatters luxury cars across dual carriageway
Long-vehicle hit central reservation on A34 and overturned
It spilled luxury cars worth more than £70,000 each and damaged the tarmac
Road is closed in both directions today
By GRAHAM SMITH

PUBLISHED: 11:02, 9 October 2012 | UPDATED: 11:58, 9 October 2012

A lorry transporting brand new Range Rovers crashed on a busy dual carriageway last night, scattering its expensive cargo across both sides of the road.
The long-vehicle hit the central reservation and overturned, spilling several luxury cars worth more than £70,000 each and damaging the tarmac.
Police closed the A34, near Whitchurch, Hampshire, in both directions after the accident late last night and repair work is still taking place today.
Expensive spill: Police have closed the A34, near Whitchurch, Hampshire, in both directions after the long-vehicle hit the central reservation, scattering Range Rovers across the road, last night
Hampshire Constabulary’s roads policing unit posted on its Twitter account: ‘A very expensive road traffic collision, thankfully nobody was hurt! Not much left of some nice Range Rovers!’
The transporter was driving north up the A34, between Bullington and Highclere, when it hit the central reservation, at around 11pm.
No one was hurt in the crash and no other vehicles were involved, police said.
Rush hour commuters were this morning met with gridlock as the busy main artery was shut. It is expected to be closed for most of the day.
The lorry and all of the Range Rovers have now been removed, but work is still needed to clear spilled diesel and hydraulic fluid and repair extensive damage to the road surface.
A spokesman for Hampshire Constabulary said: 'A transporter lorry carrying several vehicles was in collision with the central barrier on the A34 northbound carriageway at Whitchurch.
'Several vehicles being carried on the lorry came off and ended up in both carriageways. 'No other vehicles were involved and fortunately no one was injured.
‘The road is likely to remain closed for most of Tuesday to allow for repairs to the road surface and barriers.’
A spokesman for the Highways Agency added: ‘The A34 is expected to remain closed until at least the early afternoon. Road users are advised to leave plenty of time for their journeys and to avoid the area if possible, using alternative routes.’
The spokesman added: 'Sections of the north and southbound carriageway have been damaged and will need to be resurfaced, and around 100 metres of barrier in the central reservation also needs to be repaired before the road can be safely re-opened to traffic.

[hitch]

70000 at retail no more than 30k to assembly
the cost is in the design

[plannerman]

I bet the cops who were first on the scene thought it was absolute carnage!

[chester1]

saw this one the other day in larkfield

[gouls]

tc trans:
heres a little load I had on mine a few years back.

we used to do quite a bit of car auction work, and had been known to once or twice use a greasy glove on certain bits of bodywork if a strap had broken… wink

Tidy load, must have been close to max height with that top deck rear, the greasy glove trick explains why so many auction transporters are artificially clean methinks, course for a really good ding in a wing or door you resorted to hugging the car while the paperwork got signed

[gouls]

chester1:
saw this one the other day in larkfield

Oops, fell off the narrows loading through by the looks of it. Just about the worst spot and the worst car to to do it with, looks like it’s still (sort of) on the scissor deck.

It’s similiar to what the lad did at Peterboro I posted about earlier, main difference is he had a nine car so was about 7 foot up but using the trailer to lift it was easy enough, an RR as pictured would have been a wee bit harder to sort that way with the slide/tilt decks above together with the weight.

[juddian]

Gouls:

chester1:
saw this one the other day in larkfield

Oops, fell off the narrows loading through by the looks of it. Just about the worst spot and the worst car to to do it with, looks like it’s still (sort of) on the scissor deck.

Paragon/Inchcape/Eurofleet/Whatever they’re called at the moment?

Pound to a penny the driver was looking through the windscreen instead of out the window watching the wheels, and simply drove it straight off the edge…, mind you might have been reversing it on i suppose but didn’t (or realise he should have) selected Low range and had to go too fast.
I always drove one on in that position, can’t remember if you’d get out the door when reversed on.

The scissor deck looks low, wonder if he wasn’t used to Disco’s and left scissor half and half instead of locking it full up?

I’d like to know what went wrong.

Not an easy one to recover from…sheesh, do i miss it, do i buggery…

edit…one of my old mates did similar with a Sport V8 and lucky he didn’t come fully off, had to get a big fork truck to lift it back on, he stretched the body fully and went over the top, as many did at the time, trouble is they used to go over in high range at full pelt…frightening being beside one it was like being in an earthquake…they banned that practice later thank goodness, buggered the bodies as well, they were never meant to take that pounding over the top every day.

[gouls]

Scissor deck sure does look low, trailer deck is only at the top of the arches for starters.

At Swindon we always put the CRV in that spot on forwards and we went straight over the top, the whole setup was marked so we could load the top decks and set them to running height straight after loading behind the cab, finish loading the trailer, ramps away and off you went, even with having to check the cars over prior to loading, faffing around with the curly barcode labels and marking vehicle position on a load sheet it was around 30 minutes from start to finish.

Scissor decks were a pain in the backside when the trucks went to other depots though, as they never got any exercise at Swindon they seized up and blew rams, usually when yours truly was trying to shift one for the first time in months after running the truck to Corby. One truck got me a fine reputation trying to do a 3 dropper from Corby, blew one scissor ram at Gefco Corby, blew the other side at Pug dealer, Kettering then blew the main feed from the tank at Northampton, as always it went when the decks were halfway to the moon, Pirtek came out and replaced half the hoses in the end just to be on the safe side, took four hours to tip two cars

[theweescot]

Hi all, newbee here.

I’m just wondering if anyone could tell me how many vans (7m long x 2m high) you can get on an 11 car transporter?

Thanks.

[tubbs36]

here s a spot of damage
and after

[tubbs36]

here s some more
[attachment=1]533881_1020042]

[turbovision]

waynedl:
The adjustable ramps also sit extremely close and obviously there’s some bounce, how do they not hit, is it just experience or is the training half decent?

I would think the recent spate of winter pot-holes may have caused a few extra bounces and some damaged car roofs.

[gezt]

as said it’s a good job but hard work. did it for a few years,tempted to go back but have a decent job where i am. also small cabs put me off cos i have a daf 105xf ssc now ,built in fridge an stuff so would be a major step down. wages are not like they used to be either,not enough for the real hard graft needed.