ckm1981:
I see people keep referring back to the drivers age,all made our minds up have we that because he was “young” he was somewhat inexpericened…so go in enlighten me,how would we all have made sure this didn’t happen if it was you behind the wheel?
Doesn’t matter if he was 19 or 90 if there was a fault out of his control that attributed to this awful accident.
Well for me if I felt it going and no brakes working I would of gone straight into garden walls not let it keep gathering speed.
Ok how do YOU know he “let it keep gathering speed”■■?
Again making assumptions on how the guy handled the vehicle and what happened,if you listened to the radio today the police said he tried to slow it down by crashing into walls ect that’s how he ended up on his side…
GasGas:
If the wheel brakes are sufficient, why do trucks have exhaust brakes, engine brakes and at least the option of a retarder? And why aren’t theses secondary braking systems included in the truck-driving test, which is now 4 parts and includes searching your vehicle for illegal immigrants…which is handy if you are driving a tipper truck in the Mendips.
To reduce wear on the brake linings.
To reduce the build up of heat during prolonged braking such as descending down from Stainmore on the A66.
I can’t believe more manufactures aren’t fitting jakes ,they’re cheap light weight and simple ,I went over stainmore west bound yesterday never touched the brakes just used the jake to keep it to 60 ,infact the jake is that good I only dab the foot brake to show those behind iam slowing down .
ckm1981:
I see people keep referring back to the drivers age,all made our minds up have we that because he was “young” he was somewhat inexpericened…so go in enlighten me,how would we all have made sure this didn’t happen if it was you behind the wheel?
Doesn’t matter if he was 19 or 90 if there was a fault out of his control that attributed to this awful accident.
Well for me if I felt it going and no brakes working I would of gone straight into garden walls not let it keep gathering speed.
Ok how do YOU know he “let it keep gathering speed”■■?
Again making assumptions on how the guy handled the vehicle and what happened,if you listened to the radio today the police said he tried to slow it down by crashing into walls ect that’s how he ended up on his side…
If you read my post I said what I would do, I did not mention the actual driver, read before posting!!
joker83:
Apparently driver is 19 years old…unexperienced even being car driver,propably on the phone and foot on the brake constantly,feel sory for him,four people my god i would change place of living tbh,and if this accident was done by foreign driver omg i can see this comments…
Or a Stobart driver or even Agency, we’d be on 10 pages now!!!
simon1958:
Carryfast…Thanks… I beg to ask…How many years on the road…fella?
I started out in the late 1970’s as a fire truck factory driver on their 7.5 tonner running components and then also testing etc.Then 5 years on the local county council then some agency and class 1 general haulage and 15 years night trunking with artics and drawbars then got put off with a back problem.
ckm1981:
I see people keep referring back to the drivers age,all made our minds up have we that because he was “young” he was somewhat inexpericened…so go in enlighten me,how would we all have made sure this didn’t happen if it was you behind the wheel?
Doesn’t matter if he was 19 or 90 if there was a fault out of his control that attributed to this awful accident.
Well for me if I felt it going and no brakes working I would of gone straight into garden walls not let it keep gathering speed.
Ok how do YOU know he “let it keep gathering speed”■■?
Again making assumptions on how the guy handled the vehicle and what happened,if you listened to the radio today the police said he tried to slow it down by crashing into walls ect that’s how he ended up on his side…
I suspect it wasn’t brake failure to begin with but actually an attempted emergency stop/near miss from insufficient stopping distance, when his boss stopped at the crossing, and he couldn’t stop in time so he swerved to avoid. The brakes were cooked in the process and that was the beginning of the end.
From what I have read he wasn’t in runaway mode when he overtook his boss but when his boss stopped at the crossing and he was forced to try and stop behind that was the start of it.
ckm1981:
I see people keep referring back to the drivers age,all made our minds up have we that because he was “young” he was somewhat inexpericened…so go in enlighten me,how would we all have made sure this didn’t happen if it was you behind the wheel?
Doesn’t matter if he was 19 or 90 if there was a fault out of his control that attributed to this awful accident.
There’s no way that anyone can make any conclusions in this specific case.If it is a mechanical fault that has somehow left a wagon with no braking then age or experience probably makes less difference than luck.
Which just leaves the question of the possibility of cooked brakes as opposed to faulty brakes.Which again has no connection whatsoever to age or experience. That’s all about training at the driver instruction stage.
The training regime containing the known flaw of a doctrine,which has changed the method of driving a truck,from the idea of the use of engine braking being an essential component at all times.To one which teaches the avoidance,of the use of engine braking wherever possible.With probable foreseeable results in making drivers instinctively over reliant on brakes.As opposed to the combination of gears and brakes.
i was told the other day albeit 2nd hand, that volvo dynafleet mark down over use / too much exhaust braking, can anyone confirm? the drivers were advised to use the foot brake more.
i could only think it doesn’t like the blips when changing down to keep the engine up towards max revs
stevieboy308:
i was told the other day albeit 2nd hand, that volvo dynafleet mark down over use / too much exhaust braking, can anyone confirm? the drivers were advised to use the foot brake more.
i could only think it doesn’t like the blips when changing down to keep the engine up towards max revs
Own Account Driver:
According to the Daily Mail locals have been saying lorries were using the road as a rat run to deliver to the school.
The school is actually on that road.
Possibly the trucks were supposed to approach the site from the other direction, where they wouldn’t be using the steep downhill with the width restriction?
Own Account Driver:
According to the Daily Mail locals have been saying lorries were using the road as a rat run to deliver to the school.
The school is actually on that road.
It’ll come down to the shortest possible route from the beginning of any 7.5t limit . so if the shortest route is at the other end of the road and not the route taken the S will fly on that outcome
stevieboy308:
i was told the other day albeit 2nd hand, that volvo dynafleet mark down over use / too much exhaust braking, can anyone confirm? the drivers were advised to use the foot brake more.
i could only think it doesn’t like the blips when changing down to keep the engine up towards max revs
Absolutely disastrous conclusion to a very frightening and life changing situation for any goods vehicle driver to be involved in, I know my stomach churned when I heard the news report. There is a very good chance the reason the vehicle lost control will be found, a thorough examination for a start and evidence from the driver, when he is able to give it. In some cases as we know this isn’t always possible. Our main thoughts must be with the dead and injured so I won’t go into any guess work on what happened and why which some have already came to conclusions about, we should really wait until the official report.
However someone earlier asked if there were any Mechanics to explain why brakes fail, the braking system on our modern goods vehicles can be very complicated to sort some problems or much easier depending on the symptoms. There is basically four systems fitted as standard, the Service or footbrake, the Parkbrake, the Split system and the Spring brake, both of these are regarded as the Secondary system depending on what the manufacturer recommends. Older drivers and mechanics regarded the Secondary system as being applied by the first movement of the parkbrake lever, this in effect exhausts air from the spring brake chamber and the large spring fitted inside takes over and applies the brake mechanically, similarly an air leak in the system over a period does the same thing.
The split system comes into play when one side of the system has a fault and the other takes over, to put it simply, the footbrake valve anyway is a dual type to continue to operate when one or the other side fails. These foundation brakes are deemed enough to stop a vehicle when loaded to its gross weight or combination weight and as you know a yearly mot test checks precisely these operations.
Having engine/exhaust brakes or a ■■■■■■ system is an added bonus especially for traffic involved with a great deal of hill decents when fully loaded. Add to the basic system of mechanical valves, chambers, air dryers and switches that do many different operations throughout the system the sensors and electrical components of the modern LGV which older vehicles didn’t have the pleasure of being controlled by and all operated by ECU’s, then you can see there are many areas where faults can occur. Today’s systems even have some mechanics puzzled and at times the old start at one end and work your way through to find a fault can still apply despite the use of PC’s and diagnostics to point the way. Also components can choose any moment to stop working, I’ve known an airdryer to pack up just as the fitter was going to drive it off a pit once he’d completed an inspection. Brake chambers leaking internally and applying the brakes which initially seems like a sticking footvalve, just two examples of many that can give problems.
What I’m really trying to say is we don’t know what caused this awful tragedy apart from concluding a brake problem of some kind was the major factor, try and give this poor kid whatever his age and experience a bit of slack until the answer is known. Franky.
Own Account Driver:
According to the Daily Mail locals have been saying lorries were using the road as a rat run to deliver to the school.
The school is actually on that road.
It’ll come down to the shortest possible route from the beginning of any 7.5t limit . so if the shortest route is at the other end of the road and not the route taken the S will fly on that outcome
Not in this case, it’s a width limit due to a bottleneck at the bottom of the hill by the Mazda garage which you’d have to go past either way. I would think it would have been the preferred route into the construction project at the school as even if the other was shorter (and you’d be in the low hundreds of yards territory) it would be through a lot more residential the other way.
I think they will be fine with going to the school that way if they were actually rat-running through to somewhere else in the city, like I used prior to the limit, then they would be in the crap.
I know with the armed forces you can qaulify for driving vehicles earlier than what would be considered normal.but the difference is you spend weeks training on those vehicles and that also includes off roading and night driving.i really feel sorry for the driver hes young and if this was just a bad accident in which he had no control over.he has this to live with for the rest of his life.there was a reason for age limits and i think 19 is way to young to be responsible for such a large heavy vehicle.
Winseer:
The way you’d go down that hill weighted in a C+E compared to a tipper would be different I would hope…
I was told when on instruction - “If you rely on the engine or exhaust brake when running downhill with a full load on - you risk jackknifing at the slightest turn of the steering wheel. Your trailer won’t be braking anywhere near enough unless you use the service brake properly. Braking the tractor only with exhaust and/or engine brakes just won’t cut it”.
With that in mind, when approaching a steep hill down, I slow right down thus avoiding the need to hit the footbrake real hard. Padding the footbrakes, going down the hill at a slower than normal speed for the road, and using this in conjuction with the engine/exhaust brakes works fine for me say, going down Detling Hill in Kent - a dual carriageway steep declination with bends in it to boot.
Of all the different trucks - I like the MAN “inertial damper” style engine & exhaust brakes best. I like the Actros ones the least!
In theory, a newly-passed driver would have been told all this, which makes one wonder if despite his age, we shouldn’t be too quick to blame “driver inexperience” here.
Is Detling Hill the A249 from the M2 to the M20? Proper steep going down to the M20 with really sharp bends on narrow dual sections. I bet there’s been a few accidents on there in the past.
Yes. You’ve got a cliffy drop-off on the left side behind the bushes, and any jerky steering going down there risks having you over the top, or wiping out some carefree car choosing the wrong moment to overtake… There’s a speed camera at the bottom too, so what tends to happen is newbie car drivers fly down and then brake hard in lane 2 near the bottom, which might have you undertaking them at 40-45 by that point. Not a good point for anyone to run out of space!
Right down the bottom, you’ve got “Jades Crossing” built after an 8 year old girl Jade Hobbs and her grandma were killed crossing the road there 15 years ago.
I’ve yet to ever see anyone walking across this bridge however…
Frankydobo:
However someone earlier asked if there were any Mechanics to explain why brakes fail, the braking system on our modern goods vehicles can be very complicated to sort some problems or much easier depending on the symptoms. There is basically four systems fitted as standard, the Service or footbrake, the Parkbrake, the Split system and the Spring brake, both of these are regarded as the Secondary system depending on what the manufacturer recommends. Older drivers and mechanics regarded the Secondary system as being applied by the first movement of the parkbrake lever, this in effect exhausts air from the spring brake chamber and the large spring fitted inside takes over and applies the brake mechanically, similarly an air leak in the system over a period does the same thing.
The split system comes into play when one side of the system has a fault and the other takes over, to put it simply, the footbrake valve anyway is a dual type to continue to operate when one or the other side fails.
The bit to remember from the driver’s point of view is at the end of the day there is just one set of drums/discs and one set of shoes/pads but with limited multiple redundancy in their ‘actuation’.If that one set of actual brakes are cooked they are gone and it then doesn’t matter how many different ways you’ve got of applying them.
I don’t think I am repeating what has already been written, if so apologies.
Unless Scania have changed in the last two years since I last drove one, the exhaust brake is switched on or off by a rocker switch on the dash and operates automatically when the brake pedal is pressed. I suppose this accounts for the complaints heard about needing to give the pedal a good shove. It could also possibly lead an inexperienced-on-type driver to begin overheating the brakes, by actually applying the wheel brakes through pressing too hard, when believing that only the exhaust brake was being used.
As regarding maintenance, lack of type knowledge could lead to passing as fit for further use brake linings, which are worn enough to risk the previously mentioned S cam turning over on a Scania, which would not attract the same result on other types unless worn even more.
This is merely an observation about the type of vehicle and not speculation about a tragic accident.
Going on to training and driver monitoring equipment, for an exhaust brake to be effective high engine revs are required. However the practice nowadays seems to be that totally ignorant office suits seem to think they know best and are interpreting recorded high engine revs as driver abuse, when in reality it is anything but that.
