Alberta carrier says road rage caused its truck to lose oversized load
A trucking company from Edmonton has posted a video of “road rage game of cat and mouse” that caused one of its trucks to lose its oversized load.
DBI Transport shared video and images in an Instagram post that show why their driver had to perform a hard braking maneuver on June 11 while transporting freight in British Columbia.
The company said in the post that its truck was passed by a 1-ton flatbed with the name “KDL” on the side. Their pilot reported that a piece of drywall came out of the back of this truck, striking a car behind the 1-ton.
“This event led to a road rage game of cat and mouse in front of our driver who did his best to maintain distance until both vehicles ended up in his lane and came to a complete stop,” the company said.
DBI Transport said that its driver took evasive action and performed a hard brake application. The force of the braking application caused the brackets on the underside of the modular to fail, therefore allowing the dolly to slide out from the back of the load. The other vehicles involved left the scene.
The carrier said, “We stand behind the actions taken by our driver to ensure nobody was injured in the events that occurred in front of him. We apologize for the significant travel delays encountered in the area today.”
The company has urged witnesses to contact Kelowna RCMP if they recognized the truck or car in the video.
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EVERY commercial trucks needs to have a dash camera. I just don’t know why OEMS simply don’t install them right from the factory, built into, or above, the windshield, and mirrors.
Dash camera in my company truck is the only thing that saved my bacon within 10 minutes after giving to the police officer on scene. If your company does have a dash cam go get one so if you get into a similar situation.
While I’m sure that there are special ways of securing a mobile home dolly to the chassis, any other truck that lost it’s load would be at fault due to insufficient cargo securement, then add the lack of time for safe braking, and you have the truck driver solidly at fault for losing their load. They may not be responsible for the incident ahead of them, but watching that play out should have led them to increase their following distance and allow the others to continue their foolishness. The video seems to show the driver catching up to the activities of the road ragers without slowing, so I would say that by adjusting speed accordingly and allowing them to get further ahead would have increased time to react in case something did happen. This could have avoided the hard braking incident that caused the dolly to become detached from the load.
That is the impression I get from watching the video anyway. I wasn’t there, but have had similar experiences on the road, and my reaction has been to slow to the point where I am far enough behind to keep an eye on their activities, so I know how it will impact me.