You mean “ROCKING HARD OUT to HIGHWAY TO HELL,” don’t you? Because I can totally see that as a reasonable explanation.
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That WOULD explain it. Too bad the damn videos are usually from the rear so I can’t check if there’s any righteous headbanging going on in the cab.
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It’s important to remember sometimes the bridge doesn’t win, and people, on and under it, die. Happened last year in Rio and apparently in that third video @tintera linked to.
I wonder how many lives (and bridges, I guess) can be sacrificed in the name of cost cutting before prevention becomes the cheaper option.
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Ref Fight Club:
And yet, I’m going to continue to do it. If the drivers, or anyone else for that matter, feel insulted, I really don’t care. I have an excellent driving record, yet I insist that anyone riding in my vehicle wears a seat belt.
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One for every 30 Americans? Are you rebuilding the country every year?
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Not a dump truck, but I was told this story by an officer in the Tank Regiment who had been stationed in Germany after the War.
A tank had returned to base, but the crew had not secured the gun, and had failed to notice that it was sideways on - until they went down a suburban street and sliced a hole down the side of a row of houses.
The houses were rapidly repaired and when this was done the officer went round to apologise to the residents, who were very nice about it. But one said that his neighbour opposite had noticed how all the houses had had the rooms facing the road completely redecorated and refurnished, and wanted to know if a similar accident could be arranged for the other side of the road.
I suspect that this happened more than once.
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No need for complicated engineering. Just a beeper and a blinkenlight whenever the bed is up would be adequate. The driver willfully disabling or ignoring it remains a possibility, but the inevitable criminal charges following this kind of fuck-up ought to serve as a deterrent.
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I’d interlock it with something simple; a gear not higher than 1, an open door, etc…; something that does not happen on the road. Otherwise it’d be likely to be too annoying and the driver would rip it off at third stop, charges or not. I know I would.
Others have been asking about the retrofit cost of this sort of requirement. If vendors use ODBII settings to update the vehicles’ rules, I’m confident this can be done mostly in software.
That would be huge.
If it’s the case, and I admit it’s not great odds, the cost would be about, I figure, ((ShopTime+TechTime) + (DriverTime+TruckTime) + (AmortizedOBDProgUnits+AmortizedDevTime) = (RoughCost)) 200+1,000+~20(per unit, per rig service?) = Maybe 1250 per rig? That’s just back-of-envelope-and-a-little-tipsy math.
EDIT: And of course new models can just have it built-in, with no aftermarket cost for compliance.
If it is rolled together with another service task, the driver+truck time can be greatly lowered.
Because accidents never happen? What if they got plowed into by someone who ran a stop sign? Is the answer to eliminate all drivers and use only self-driving cars? We have plane wrecks but, yet, keep using them. Boston’s Big Dig had a sheet of metal fall on a car killing all the passengers, should they have filled the whole thing back in and made everyone walk?
We have safety interlocks for garage doors so they won’t close on people but 30,000 people injure themselves every year anyway.
It sucks, but shit is going to happen to nice people.
Who knows my truck better – me, or some dumb sign?
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Who knows the bridge better – you, or some dedicated sign? 
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My friend’s dad took out a bunch of power lines when he forgot to put down the claw of his pulp truck. Years of chainsaw noise made him oblivious to all the honking – another friend’s dad saw him going by so he chased him down and stopped him.
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