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Woman killed by a TOW BALL!!!

A D11 operator should know better.

Split into 3 that rig would have come out easily, unscathed. A hole....
 
They never seem to split them for recovery, don't know if there is a reason for that.
 
Well rather than tear the tractor unit apart, it would have been better for the D11 to pull that out separately.

After that, I'm sure the Cat could have pulled out the trailers with the chains he had rigged up.

Actually its its a rig configuration I don't recognize....:think:
 
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Looks like an Australian B double I think, if it was in South Africa it would be a Super link, short front with long rear trailer all coupled on 5th wheels.
Trailers look like they are for transporting grain or feed.
 
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Well, I'm no expert when it comes to recovery but with the pulling power a D11 has I imagine it would be very difficult for the operator to 'feel' whats actually happening. The old 'sledge hammer to crack a nut' analogy. What sort of farm would have a D11 on hand anyway?
 
You don't take a trailer off as the landing legs don't always have wheels and the ones on there are not really designed to move like that anyway. The truck should have eyes in the front you wind a eye into to recover from.
Stu
 
Well, I'm no expert when it comes to recovery but with the pulling power a D11 has I imagine it would be very difficult for the operator to 'feel' whats actually happening. The old 'sledge hammer to crack a nut' analogy. What sort of farm would have a D11 on hand anyway?

I thought that too TP, a D11 is not a "farm" type of machine...
 
Looks like an Australian B double I think, if it was in South Africa it would be a Super link, short front with long rear trailer all coupled on 5th wheels.
Trailers look like they are for transporting grain or feed.

Correct - in Australia it's called a B double
 
You don't take a trailer off as the landing legs don't always have wheels and the ones on there are not really designed to move like that anyway. The truck should have eyes in the front you wind a eye into to recover from.
Stu
I don't think the recovery eyes would take that sort of load either TBH, although at least all you'd breaks is the recovery eye rather than ripping off the front axle!!

I'm not familliar with how road trains are configured, but don't those trailers rest on a 5th wheel on a dummy axle, so you would have a full size set of wheels under the front? If not, I would still think might be better to drop a trailer, legs on wood, pull the rig and one trailer out, then back the rig back down to try and recover the rest. Your problem of course is if you find you can't get the rig back down your trailers are stranded and your screwed!

it's also a problem if people are fundamentally a bit idle!! just a bit of digging in front of the wheels makes an enormous difference to the inertia of the load.
 
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Baffles me why these rigs wouldn't have suitable recovery points when road trains are restricted to given weights . Maybe they do and driver lost the pin , then his axle , then his job :doh:
 
I carry D shackles, but am going to change them for bow shackles.

I have two straps for towing. One is a simplex 2000kg '4x4 recovery' strap, the other is a swl rated 2000kg lifting strap - its three layers.

The 4x4 strap has a breaking point of 2000kg plus an unspecified safety margin - maybe 10% or maybe 1kg, wheres the lifting strap is 7:1, so gave way at 14000kg.

There was about £3 difference between them!

When discussing towing with our response group, we recomend rated kit, not '4x4' stuff.

We dont allow winching except under extreme conditions and even then the responder must have borda/lantra training - private car insurance doesnt cover winching other vehicles, its self recovery use.

On saying that, we dont accept vehicle recovery tasks - we recover people, short tow is acceptable to get a vehicle moving.
 
It might surprise you to know that the Hampshire and Berkshire 4x4 response group actually showed a recovery by just dropping the end of a KERR rope over a tow ball on the stuck vehicle (VW Golf) and pulled it out of a ditch. When he started pulling away it was noticed that the whole tow bracket (on a Disco 2) was loose, when this was mentioned they (the training officer) said "thats allright, they go like that when you do off roading."
Some of us stepped in to stop the demo as it was clearly unsafe on so many levels, and had to warn the other people watching as most were standing within the radius of the rope should it come off.
In attendance were many members of the Shire LR off road club who were very experienced and were just speachless.
This was the assessment day that everyone has to attend to be a Responder as many there that day had never driven or recovered off road.
I did write to the commitee but was told what was done was acceptable as it was carried out by a qualified person, when i enquired what his qualifications were i was then told that it was not important.
I have since left the group.

good lord that nothing happen that time... I will not support recovering using tow ball as an anchor point..
 
Is the pin that people are referring to the pin that can come as part of a towball setup. Am I right to assume this is also not good for recovery?
IMG_0598.JPG
 
There's a difference between towing someone out when they are stuck and snatch recovery , when its snatch the load might treble or more taking equipment way beyond tested limits . I wouldn't be worried about the pin i'd be worried about old bolts giving up allowing you to tear your tow bar off .

Dedicated recovery points run close in parallel with the chassis eliminating leverage from the equation .
 
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