Seat belts - this will make you think!

I have been getting in the habit of wearing seat belt in the truck lately.■■■ ■■■ you are saying whatever for. Well try this for the unexpected.
Driving along 40mph 2 cars in front indicate left and start slowing I am well back and ease of gas then a little brake to about 25 mph to give them time to clear. They do.
Back to the gas and I STOP big time. What the ***** is going on I think. Look at dash display showing 4th gear. Check mirrors to see what has run in the back of my trailer nothing - 2 vans at funny angles behind me giving me the lights , horn and hands as they go past.
Gets out check trailer coupligs buttons etc . no can move.
Traffic all over me like a rash.
Patrol car comes along goes up the road turns round and comes back. Ah, at last there is one when you want one. Nope he looks and drives off.
What had happened was a handbrake air line sprung a leak so it automatically put the brakes on.
If I had not have been wearing a seat belt I would have been through the windscreen I can tell you.
100% wearer now

Thats scary man, even worse is having the yellow palm coupling come apart, and then needing to stop, brown trouser syndrome or what.
At the time, I didn’t know you could use the parking brake to help you stop.

I had the trailer brakes slam down on me (minds out of the gutter!!) at Gants Hill back in the 80’s. Right across the roundabout. On a Friday. At 1630 (4:30pm to the unintiated!) Oh deep joy! Again, the seat belt stopped me becoming a permanent part of the rustyboot… Sir Plod was not happy! Instant chaos… Total shutdown of the “racetrack” and A12! I was not popular! But then again, if the 'belts hadn’t been on and held, I would’ve been very sad indeed…

So WEAR THEM!

I did a Road Safety Officers course a couple of years ago; two weeks of stats, videos and accident reconstructions was enough to remind me to always wear seatbelts. :cry:

Happened to me on a little roundabout on a back road near Nantes, although I wasn’t going fast and they didn’t slam on. However the bloke who helped me direct traffic while someone came out to fix it turned out to be a plain clothes detective. Afterwards he came forward and flashed an ID saying, with a very serious face, ‘Surete National’. I laughed and said ‘yeah, right’ before realising that he wasn’t joking and was very suspicous of what had happened. Fortunately the mechanic was able to explain. :unamused:

Salut, David.

Never had an air line snap, but whilst turning a corner into an industrial estate once I heard a whoosh of air from somewhere then suddenly came to a halt, luckily I was only doing about 5mph as I was turning. Felt like the handbrake has suddenly come on. First port of call was to check the air lines and I was surprised to find the red line had popped off the trailer and was dangling in mid air. I guess I can’t have twisted the sleeve round after coupling up to it earlier and that’s how it popped off whilst turning. Just connected it back up again and off I went. :slight_smile:

bloody air lines :imp:
i remember when i last drove artics 6 years ago, i had a drop at some ind est and as i left i came to a roundabout. as i tried to pull away, the unit pulled but the trailer wouldnt budge. being new to artics, i didnt know what to do so i pulled all the lines off and reconnected them. i checked the trailer brake which was fine so i called the agency to ask for advice. they told me to pull the lines off again and reconnect them and then call the client.
recovery came out and got me going again so off i went. job finished blah blah blah. next day the agency called to say i was not allowed back to that company due to the recovery not being necessary. it turns out that the problem was a kink in the air line. that was it :unamused:

Although not a brake failure, more a moments inattention, I had to clamp on the anchors whilst following a transit van on an A road, just coming up to a road junction. I clocked the road name and quickly glanced at the collection address on the notes, then looked back to the road and :open_mouth: :open_mouth: the transit was stopped and indicating to turn right, and I was still doing 40mph and nearly on top of him :cry:
I stood on the brake pedal and went from 40mph to 0mph within the length of the truck (according to the little ABS skid marks). The guy in the Fiesta following me ended up in the ditch alongside the trailer wheels . :blush: :blush: :slight_smile: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Anything on the bunk jumped the gap to the top of the dashboard/ windscreen (pillows newspaper etc). everything else not nailed down ended up on the floor up against the front bulkhead including the carpets.
Those seat belts don’t half give you a nasty fabric burn, but I was dead impressed by the brakes, and dead(or not) thankful to the seat belt. :smiley:

Dratsabasti:
At the time, I didn’t know you could use the parking brake to help you stop.

Please can you explain?

theghostofcain:

Dratsabasti:
At the time, I didn’t know you could use the parking brake to help you stop.

Please can you explain?

AIUI, on most trucks, the parking brake can be applied gradually in case the service brake has failed. Just push the parking brake lever down slowly. This is your “secondary” braking system.

■■■■, Mr Flibble, you beat me to it.

I drove our 17t today for the first time in anger, my normal one is the 14t cos I haven’t got a HIAB ticket. It’s only an X plate and doesn’t have seatbelts fitted. They are both DAF 55s but there’s a bloody world of difference between the old model (the X plate, ‘Leyland’ style) and mine (04 plate, LF model), the newer ones are a different class.

I always wear my belt in my regular one.

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Get used to it because it is going to happen to you again :exclamation:

It has happened to me enough times without seat belts because they were not fitted. The worst was in the mid 80’s in a Volvo F7 with a flat bed trailer full of empty pallets, doing 65 mph on the M62 near Knottingley, Yorks, I had left a coil of rope on the walkway that slipped down between the drive wheels and came round to take all the air pipes off :exclamation: I was passing a row of cars at the time and went from 65 to 0 in seconds :exclamation:

The bad thing now is that the air lines are all self sealers back there which means once the air has gone you are stuffed, back then you just drained the trailer tanks and moved the trailer.

:smiley: All so delightful!
Something else to be painfully aware of with no seatbelt on. :stuck_out_tongue:
Ta. :open_mouth:

Dratsabasti:
Thats scary man, even worse is having the yellow palm coupling come apart, and then needing to stop, brown trouser syndrome or what.
At the time, I didn’t know you could use the parking brake to help you stop.

Me to, running into GY with a norfolk line trl early one morning,to swap over and run out again came to a t junction went to stop and the the trailer just pushed the unit straight round into a jackknife, lucky i was only doing about 15mph when it happened, oh and no seat belt, the F10s didnt have them. Never trusted palm couplings after that :open_mouth:
Dont think the trailer brake part of the parking brake would’ve helped in this situation, without the yellow line connected :question: doesnt the secondry system work through the drive and trailer axles only :question: