Let’s take trucks out of the spotlight by eliminating rollovers.
When a truck is involved in any type of road incident, it is often splashed across the news: “Truck….”
Whether the truck driver was at fault – and in the vast majority of cases they’re not – the truck is usually initially blamed. When it comes to truck rollovers, there is a lot our industry can do to reduce these incidents occurring at all, eliminating one opportunity for (unfair) negative publicity.
The science is simple
Rollovers really are simple physics: make a load top heavy and then take a corner and the inevitable happens. Think about a race car, wide base narrow top, with the purpose being to help it “hug” the road, bends and corners.
Trucks are obviously far from race cars. Where speed is the ally of race cars it is the enemy of trucks, especially when loaded and even more so if that load is top heavy.
But like in racing, margins mean everything.
The same route may have been safely negotiated 200 times, but add an extra kilometre or two and a slightly top heavy (though legal) load and the combination leads to a disastrous outcome.
Be it bulk tankers, waste, rigids or agitators, speed and mass are a deadly combination. But these are all factors we can control.
Practical measures
The introduction of Electronic Stability Control and Stability Control made a huge difference in reducing truck rollovers, and various sectors of the transport industry have taken the lead to reduce rollovers in the past decade. But there is more to do.
NRSPP’s has released a new Heavy Vehicle Toolbox Talk package focused on loads and load management. The Toolbox Talks include several first-hand interviews with truck drivers and, as Toll Group truck driver Fareez reinforces, slow and steady always win the ‘race’.
In August, NRSPP is also hosting a webinar with longstanding heavy vehicle rollover prevention expert Alan Pincott, where he will provide advice on what else drivers and operators can do to eliminate truck rollovers. For, Alan, there are four steps to the transport industry eliminating rollovers entirely:
- Own the issue
- Understand the problem
- Train drivers and educate operators, and
- Work together across the transport industry.
Join Alan Pincott on August 23 to better understand the challenges, what the industry has already done to reduce rollover incidents, and practical measures you can put in place to prevent them.
Click here to register for the free August 23 NRSPP webinar : Understanding How Truck Rollovers Can Be Avoided