Monday, January 5, 2009

Dump Trucks - Your Thoughts, Please

Let me ask you this: Have you ever seen one of these drive slow (other than when they are actually dumping something or being filled up)?


Is there something about dump trucks or dump truck drivers that cannot go slow?

6 comments:

Elephantschild said...

The speed is inversely proportional to how dangerous the load is they're carring.

One big rock, securely strapped in, and they'll be going just 5 miles over the speed limit.

An over-piled pile of rusty scrap metal, all in pieces 12-36" long and weighing 50lbs or less each, and the drive is sure to be going 80mph with no tarp covering his load.

I kind of miss big city driving, living out here with most fearsome thing being the possibility of meeting one of those insectoid sprayers wandering down a single lane blacktop...

Toni said...

They always look like Mel Sharples from the tv show ALICE too, hat and all (with a big fat stogie hanging out of their mouth).
Blessings,
~Toni~

K.I. said...

Or how 'bout when they don't scrub their wheels after leaving the gravel pit and then spew rocks every which way? My husband had his windshield taken out by one of those rocks and (seriously) by God's grace didn't get his face smashed in at the same time.

Not a big fan of dump trucks around here.

Unknown said...

Everyone knows they have a death wish (yours). It's part of the job description. But seriously, I think EC is on to something.

Randy Spradlin said...

If the speed is one issue, the sign I saw on one truck in another. It said, "Not responsible for rocks hitting your car!" So, they can carelessly load the truck, drive aimlessly, spill gravel on your car and damage it AND they aren't responsible for it!
There has to be a way that they can "tarp down" a bed without flying debris. It's bad enough how much it takes to maintain a car without these guys damaging the body of the auto itself.

Unknown said...

A dump truck’s speed is inversely proportional to my need to get some place quickly. If I leave early, allowing enough time for unexpected delays, I will encounter one dump truck barreling down K7 at roughly mach 1. If the daughter decides to use Bleu Cheese Salad Dressing as hair conditioner five minutes before our scheduled departure (yesterday, just before preschool), necessitating an extreme hair make-over and a critical delay in departing the house, I will encounter a convoy of gravel trucks running 15 mph below the posted speed limit, hovering over the white lines, ensuring that no one gets around them.

A similar cosmic logic surrounds the tarping of trucks. Place one large chunk of steel in a truck bed, such as a box car axle or a the chassis of a ’69 Dodge Dart, and you’ll find the load secured by fifteen tie-downs and a brand new, securely tied tarp. A load of gravel precariously piled twelve feet above the lip of the truck will be covered by a frayed and holey blue tarp secured by two bits of kite string at the front end of the truck bed, causing the back to flap in the wind like the world’s largest flag over Big Bob’s Buick Emporium in Jasper, Indiana.

It’s just the way things are.