Jim's Towing rolling over a container

I got to go to a rollover at I290 w/b on the ramp to e/b lake/north ave. this is a bad ramp because the ramp is strait until the end and it turns sharply. The truck was hauling a container w/ unknown cargo. The PD called Jims towing out to assist with the recovery. They opted to call in help from Bristol towing. After some discussion, they changed their plan of attack and opted to use 2 heavies in front to lift the container wail the 3rd heavy pulled the load to the ground





Notice, they X chained the container to the chasie, very important when dealing with container trucks, especially when all your attachment points ate on the container them selves (like Jims did)

Jims provided traffic control during the recovery.

When they were ready to upright the unit, they put the 2 heavies almost perpendicular, in order to get more lift and less side stress on their trucks. Unfortunately, the shut down a major road and main access to the ramp to N/B I294 in the middle of rush hour.

















The recovery (from the time they started their 1st winch till the time all the wheels were on thee ground) took 7 min (no, I’m not exaggerating, they started at 6:45 and ended at 6:52)
Well here are my views; all in all, it was a success. - Its not the method I would have used but that’s cool, everyone has their own preferences. They preformed the recovery well- for the way they planned it. I was not close enough to get a look at the details so I can’t make any comments about my usual pet peeves. I like the way they cross chained the container. It is always great to see competitors working together.
But by far the 2 thing I like the most about this recovery, is the attempt at traffic control and the best thing is the 2 people standing on either side of the unit, directing and watching for anything unexpected.
The traffic control was good except, the did not follow MUTCD guidelines but even more than that, they did not use any signs or barricades. This is very important for many reasons, but the most important is that WHEN YOU PUT OUT TRAFFIC CONTROLE DEVICES (cones) YOU ARE LIABLE if anything goes wrong. If one of their operators gets run over, you did not have proper warning. If some one swerves into the closer and gets into an accident, he can SUE YOU!!!!!. – I know what some of you are thinking, its only a short temporary closure- if its more than ½ hour- 1 hour ( I don’t remember) you need to follow certain guidelines. The moral of the story is, if you want to undertake traffic control- great- I'm all for it, but make sure you have the correct set up and signs, and INSURANCE- YES, ITS DIFFERENT THEN YOUR NORMAL TOWING AND RECOVERY POLICY. Otherwise, call the professional traffic control people or let the PD handle it.

The other thing I see that need improvement is-
-where are their safety vests, eye protection, and hard hats?

I was not close enough to hear what was said or if there was a malfunction but the bristle truck needed to start pulling much earlier and the Jims trucks needed to let go of their end- 7 min is a bit much, it was balancing on the mid point a bit too long. I can’t say that I was too impressed with the hook-up from the bristle truck- 1 line to the container- and there was little or no pull on the tractor- why- and if the bristle truck had the one line hooked to the cab, it was not a low pull and there for made any pull futile.

Again, these are not knocks at Jims or Bristle, but they need to be used as learning tools and be looked at as what we need to improve next-time.

One other thing I want to bring up- this is directed to all of you out there- not just Jims or bristle. When a container is rolled over, it is very often taken for granted that the sides are strong and there is no need to strap or chain or air bag them- WRONG!!!!!!!!!- Way wrong in fact, they just destroyed the container. Yes, the load is still contained but, you need to remember what the container is used for- the containers are placed on a ship, sometimes, many on top of one another. When a container is bulged on the sides because the recovery was not properly supporting the side walls, the top of that container is not as strong as it once was and it has lost its integrity- I will leave you with these pics to let this lessen sink in.















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