In light of the recent on going inclement weather High Winds/Red Warning/Danger to life .
Have you as a driver been pressured in taking out a vehicle by transport managers .
As Drivers you have the right to say NO and you can whistle-blow
I didn’t think it was windy today but travelling home in car we had to divert twice due to large trees across the road ( never seen any down on that stretch of road in years ) ,
I could see in distance a lorry with hazards on , cops , hopefully tree was on lorry .
There was no red warnings today .
The country wiould soon grind to a halt and food shelves run empty if every truck parks up every time we get an often wildly exaggerated wind warning as in this case.
What was described as a National weather bomb being a localised gale in far North and Scottish borders.
I was out with a box trailer loaded with empty cages during the great 1987 storm in the South East.
The one which the Met Office said wouldn’t happen.Thought nothing of it even after the drive axle was lifted off the road and having to drop a couple of gears on the flat and downhill Southbound on the M1 against the headwind.
It was only the commute home in the morning diverting for numerous fallen trees and finding the chimney stack torn apart on the house which made me realise that it had been a proper gale.
Few years back I was working out of Trafford park we had a regular run to building site in aberdeen. Collect in afternoon delivery next day
When they were predicting the beast form the east got told doing andedeen run.
I questioned this saying what there prededicintg etc was told they always exegaetre these thing’s.
So anyway set off got someqare between Glasgow and Perth and got caught in it spent night stuck on motorway.
Worst part is next day I knew I’d be late getting to Aberdeen usually got there about 9 30 10.
So rang site foreman as had his number and explained said be there about 14 00 hrs .he said no point site is shut due to health and safety reasons fair enough.
Rang office told them was basically told head there then we will ring out customer tell them.
As if we tell them now we can only charge them as far as Perth. If you get to Aberdeen we can charge them to Aberdeen.
So got there came back got back Saturday morning and went back again on Monday was a complete farce.
Not like I was complaining to much paid by the hour though.
Have I got this right?
The wind lifted the wheels off the ground? And you thought…nothing…of it?
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You question this, Franglais, a quote made by Carryfast?
Mea culpa…
How could I doubt the word…?
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I was based in Aldershot on the night of the storm, I was nissed as a pewt after a function in the police club, I staggered to bed and passed out. Woke up next morning and found my bed was soaking wet, I thought I’d swamped it, it was only when I opened my eyes, I saw that the side of the corporal’s accommodation had been ripped off by the winds and I slept through the lot! 
To be exact the very high winds which I knew absolutely nothing about when I started my shift for my first run to Bristol at 8pm.You know the high winds which they told everyone wouldn’t happen contrary to some earlier in the day rumours.
I was still surprised as to why the depot canteen door which was open, suddenly slammed shut when I’d finished my break.Then thought blimey it is suddenly a bit windy as I walked out to couple up for my next run to Northampton.The storm came in very quick with a warm calm before it and some strange swirling cloud patterns which I’d noticed to the South when running back eastbound on the M4.l before my break.
It had increased in strength to the point of clearly lifting the nearside trailer and drive wheels clear of the road as I crossed the Heathrow junction flyover heading for the M25 and M1.The revs suddenly went up to the red and I felt and heard the thump as the wheels landed again.
I was still surprised enough by the strength of the gusts to not be too bothered about it.
I’d driven a lot of relatively light box trailers in high winds before and after it.
I then left the worst of it behind as a strong tailwind on the M25 and reducing in strength running further North.But a massive headwind running back South.
But still didn’t really think much about it at that time.
I was driving a Scania 112 long term rental.
Like the winter of 81/82 it takes some serious weather to stay that clear in the memory and having done a return run to York on Friday this ‘storm’ was way exaggerated in terms of strength and coverage.
I can quite believe that the wheels were lifted off the deck by high winds. Some vehicles were blown over.
What surprises me was that anyone would “not be bothered about it” or “thought nothing of it”.
to be fair I was a child when the storm hit and was woken up by it from a nightmare and i thought someone was trying to get in my window as it was ratteling. I was told not to be so silly it was just a storm and to go back to bed.
in the morning my mother left to go to work and 5 mins later came back because she couldnt get out the end of the road for fallen trees. The area i grew up in was the worst hit in kent the guy up the road lost 200 acres of woodland 14 trees had been blown down across the road in a 1/2 mile stretch down to the village
Let’s just say that I ‘might’ have re evaluated my thinking if it had happened again at the M4 M25 junction flyover.
But I didn’t see much difference between it and the type of severe buffeting I’d experienced previously during other gales.Often with the laughter of the Scottish drivers if you think that was bad you should have seen Beattock and Shap.Also a different management mindset in which the premise was on weather conditions being irrelevant to the job unless they literally stopped us moving on the road.So more like blown over than the wheels just lifted a bit.
I was more surprised by it than bothered.It wasn’t like it had lifted the wheels feet off the ground more like inches going by the time interval of the revs suddenly rising and the thump as it landed.
The point is that weather events then didn’t have the same hysterical media hype as now and obviously without the ‘climate’ narrative polluting them.
Also high winds are another situation in which drawbar outfits are more stable and less affected being better planted on the road with a two independent sides with a big gap between, applying less leverage to the axles…
Excep…no…I really can’t be arsed.
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I was parked in Tenterdon the night that Michael
Fish infamously “fished up”. Luckily for me I was pulling an empty flatbed step frame so I was not affected. However the next morning was challenging due to all the trees scattered around everywhere
To be fair Michael Fish only took his information from the Met Office.
Now it seems they are so fearful of understating anything that they go way over the top to cover themselves combined with maintaining the climate change narrative.This limited localised storm wasn’t because the Atlantic is too warm it was because North America was way too cold.
Taken to the extreme of actually going over maybe you can explain how, as I thought, the prime movers stayed upright only the trailers went.
Doesn’t quite work that way. Lorries are pretty stable and it’s difficult to blow them over but in the wrong aerodynamic conditions the combination of direct wind force to one side of the wagon and momentary low pressure to the leeward side can simultaneously blow / suck a truck over whether it’s an artic, rigid or drawbar. It’s the same principle as an aircraft wing or a ship’s sail.
Demonstrating your lack of experience.
Gawd, you spruke some rubbish.
You need to think of a drawbar outfit as two different independent vehicles Ro.The drive axle/s of the prime mover isn’t in any way supporting or affected by what’s happening to the trailer.The air gap between the two vehicles won’t allow the wind to act equally on both vehicles.As opposed to the drive axle of an artic tractor unit supporting and being affected by what’s happening across the full area of the side of a semi trailer.Like a dam with a massive breach in the middle won’t apply any load at either end.
An A frame type drawbar obviously being relatively more immune and isolated in that regard, with the front bogie and turntable totally isolating the prime mover in that regard than a close coupled type.
Those NZ photos prove it when taken to the extreme.
You can drive the things through a hurricane without really knowing it or feeling it in the way that you do with an artic. An artic is a full square rigged mast and the drive axle is it’s base.
The air gap is pretty well irrelevant. Ironically, the scenario is made considerably worse if the bulkhead of the truck body and trailer body are aerodynamically modified to streamline the air; and worse still if the body is curtain-sided. Fast moving air slipping past a moulded front end to then flow round billowing curtains is near vacuum waiting to happen. Drawbars are no more immune to wind blow / suck overs than artics I think.