Just curious

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

I was passed by a 26t flatbed today on the A1 just coming up to Stirling Corner. Nothing new there, I hear you say.

He/she had 3 stacks of something marked as “interceptor trays”, piled 5 high. Each stack had 2 straps over them, which considering I have no idea how much they weigh, could well have been fine.

The load caught my eye because these stacks looked a bit skew wiff as if they had moved, and as I have intimated before, I like things to be neat a tidy :wink: now bugger me when he came to a stop on approach to the roundabout, and when he/she took off again, a load of rainbow coloured fluid slopped over the front and back of these trays. It went all over the road every time the truck made any sudden move.

My question is, what were these trays likely to contain? Was it just water they had been filled with a the rainbow was just made up from old oil/diesel that was on the floor of the trays?
Secondly, why don’t they have a lid for transportation purposes? I refuse to believe the driver didn’t know they were doing it.

I’m not at all intimating that what the driver was doing or had done was wrong, just that I have never pulled anything like that, nor have I been around them before so I’m genuinely interested. Sorry for the longwindedness :smiley:

2

Interceptor trays are generally used in drains where they have to separate oils from water before allowing the water into main drainage system. Could be the slop in them was just rainwater mixing with a bit of oil.

3

Try telling the family of a dead or injured motorcyclist “oh its OK, it was only water with a bit of oil mixed in.”

4

dreamingofoz:
Try telling the family of a dead or injured motorcyclist “oh its OK, it was only water with a bit of oil mixed in.”

I ride motorbikes myself (albeit only of a Sunday), so know how treacherous oil can be. Ditto when some moron truck driver overfills their tank and sloshes the excess diesel over the first roundabout.

It could well be those interceptor trays filled up with water when the truck was parked up overnight somewhere. Personally I used to sheet up loads on flats as well as strapping down the load, but many drivers seem too lazy to do things like that nowadays.