The Rollover- The Reason

when i was a young tower, with in my first year of towing, i was working a rollover semi- my very first- with O'Hare Towing. i don't remember who said it, it may have been my close friend Mike Tricowski (i don't think i spelled his name right- sorry mike) who said "this is why we are here, this is why we are what we are- all our skills and all our training comes down to rollovers"

well, i went out to see our friends at Bloomingdale towing working another one. this time it was a semi on the ramp from westbound thorndale to I290 e/b. the semi was not even 1/2 loaded. he had about 6-8 small skids of rolled steel coils and thoes were in the nose and when it rolled, the coils tore open the roof. and in the rear of the trailer were 6-8 skids of boxes- and not stacked high- all were very low skids- so this trailer was not top heavy and the load probobly did not shift to cause the rollover. the driver more than likly underestimated his load and figured with such a small load he could take the ramp much faster- WRONG!

you will note some pics are smaller than others- i did that on purpous- i wanted the odvious pics that don't show detail so load faster. i think i figured out how to work this pic thing.



this is one thing i absolutly do not get- why- why-why do they put coils in trailers???? i just don't get it. there is no way to keep them from moving . they should all be put on flatbed trailers and chained to the bed. therte is just no way to secure them safely in a trailer. and especialy if there is not a full load of some other pallets to keep them from sliding around--- i just don't get it









i want to clearify what i said earlier in my other post (the dump truck bloomingdales uprighted) what i said my have been construed to say that bloomingdales did not hook up right on the dump truck- they did hook up correctly and they hooked up correctly here also- the chain around the front axel is also around the frame of the truck. please check out my posts in april for the full story about the rollover dump.

i would like to sing high praises for this next pic. one thing i cant stand and i don't understand why it is not done everytime a rollover happens is the removal of the drive shaft!!! remove it when the truck is on its side- why crawl on the ground after the truck is upright? NICE JOB!!!

now that it upright, all that is left is to chain the bottom of the trailer, strap the top, hook to the tractor and were off!!!!

i think they did an exelent job!!! i can honestly say i am becoming more and more impressed with bloomingdale towing- and anyone who knows me as far as my towing side goes- i don't like anyone, and i am the most nit picky person. the only heavy duty towing companies i would say i trust implicidly is LIN-MAR, Fries and Bloomingdales.

now with that all said, i do have a 3 sugestions and one is a BIG grevence!!!

the biggest problem i see is the recovery scene gear and more specificly- a safety vest!!! if you are working on the side of a highway- dawn a safety vest at least- i would also strongly sugest a hardhat, safety glasses and steel toed shoes- and don't get me wrong, i am not picking on bloomingdale towing, because only a small hand full of companies actualy do anything about safety. i have such a huge issue with safety and the gear at a work sceen that i will be devoting an entire artical on it in the comming week or so.

i want to say i have recived lots of e-mail from many people about this piece and thay all agree that this was a great job by bloomingdale and most thought i was abit too critical ablout the catch vehical. so i have deleated my origional rant and i will just say this: whan ever ANYONE uses a catch vehical, be carefull not to have the line too taut too early. if the line is too taut too early, the recovery trucks will be pulling against the winches of the catch truck- that puts more resistence on the lines and on the casualty and in somecases (NOT HERE) it can cause more damage to the casualty. in this case it did not matter as the trailer was destroyed anyway.

honestly there is only one more thing i would have done and that would have been to drag the TT to the side more and open the ramp- limitedly. for most ramps, i would say screw it leave it closed but thorndale is a major street and at rush hour that ramp is a major thurofare. but as some of you know, dragging is a very sensitive issue and i don't want to push it. i bielive in it whole heartedly but some would have a coniption fit.

there are always a few little thing that are preferece oriented but their way accomplised the same goal, so i cant nit pic too much.

i want to say one more thing b4 i close- i know i am very hard on the recoveryies i cretice and in alot of cases it seems like i over nit pic and i hope no one takes my chriticisim to heart. all i ask is that you learn from them. i know "hindsight is 20/20" but the point of that is so u learn for the future, i am still looking for the accident recovery that i can say "it is 100% perfect"- but its been 9 years and it has not happened yet. i am starting to give up on the towing industry in Illinois- but my search will contenue. good luck to all and Great Job BloomingDale!!