Watching some scary ■■■■ driving to work the other morning. Came up behind a lorry pulling a container with its right side door swinging back and forth as the truck swayed round the bends !!
Don’t know how long it had been open like that. But it was pure fluke it didn’t swing open and smash into something coming the other way, was a fairly narrow A road it was driving down. was scary watching it swing into the on coming lane, narrowly missed a coach coming the other way, it just so happend to close back moments befor the coach passed !
driver seemed oblivious to it. May have just bin unlucky and only checking the mirrors at the Same time the door was swing out of the view. Anyway after afew miles down the road driver finally saw the the problem and pulled over.
No harm done but was a scary situation to be behind that. Your trying to single the driver from behind but you don’t fancy getting to close in case you get court up in a contact with something coming the other way hitting the doors !
Well tbh there aint no excusing this really, but to play devils advocate for a minute I’d say that by the very nature of physics the door would only swing open whilst the driver was negotiating a left hand bend thus rendering the door invisible to the driver. If he’s in a straight line the wind force alone would keep the door closed enough so he wouldn’t spot it, similarly if he was on a right hand bend physics dictate that the open door wouldn’t be visible.
Not excusing it, just saying how it may have gone unnoticed.
the maoster:
Well tbh there aint no excusing this really, but to play devils advocate for a minute I’d say that by the very nature of physics the door would only swing open whilst the driver was negotiating a left hand bend thus rendering the door invisible to the driver. If he’s in a straight line the wind force alone would keep the door closed enough so he wouldn’t spot it, similarly if he was on a right hand bend physics dictate that the open door wouldn’t be visible.
Not excusing it, just saying how it may have gone unnoticed.
Seen similar a few years back and although the head-wind will eventually have an effect similar to your description, there are other physics at play. Container doors are very heavy, so the angle at which they are facing the head-wind needs to be sufficiently flat for the head-wind to have the effect described, the drag-wind behind the truck will also cause a counter pressure creating the pendulum effect on the open door, so it does not require the truck to be going around a left hand bend.
In short, turbulence doesn’t follow the straight line rules.
Indeed it could have gone un-noticed, but I’d wager that driver needs to have a word with himself about his vehicle checks, checking the doors are secure is pretty basic.
No tellung how or why it happened without talking to driver.
Have had door open on a box trailer and a c/sided, defective clasp and trailer flexing, oh and a roller shutter that had been shut and sealed by security came open on m5!
Happened to me a few years back with a curtainsider, would see something in the corner of my eye in the mirrors, but when I looked properly the door had gone back.
Was being followed by another one of our driver and he managed to get my attention, loads of flashing lights. Stopped closed door and a few miles down the road the dam thing worked its way open again. So closed it again and put a cable tie through the latch, that seemed to stop it coming undone.
Basically what happened was that when the clip flipped over on a bumpy road surface, the handle jumped up and door latch worked loose.
I followed a trailer along a66 with a swinging door , flashed and blasted horn . driver had stopped at tebay on the road up for the loo and can only assume somebody had decided to have a look inside. but as has been said above unless turning left the door didn’t swing into the drivers view. plus it was through night and driver was unsure about stopping on a deserted rd for some bloke(s) in a van. finally got him to stop nr Keswick and luckily no harm done .
