My attempts at trying to take Elsie's picture in the bluebonnets. I was having a hard time trying to get her to stay still!
James was holding a bluebonnet sprig in the air to try and get her attention.
Indy, this one's for you, although I'm sure you've already looked it up by now! The ICC bumpers that we have now (on trailers newer than 1998) are supposed to keep people that rearend a big truck attached to their heads. Most docks also have these locking mechanisms that hook to the bumper to keep the truck in place at least long enough for the forklift driver to get out if some idiot decides to pull out while being loaded or unloaded. If you see one of these bent in the middle it's a sure bet that the driver didn't double check to make sure the lock actually disengaged before moving or rolled back into the dock causing it to re-lock.
They're called ICC bumpers because the Interstate Commerce Commission was the regulatory board for trucking and rail in the U.S. (initially rail, ICC was est. in 1887, dissolved in 1995) that required bumpers on the big trucks in 1953. What blows my mind is that it took until 1991 before any action was taken to improve the bumpers in order to prevent so many of the fatalities. Prior to that it was pretty much guaranteed that anybody who rear-ended a truck was going to be decapitated.
This is one instance where I think additional safety measures was actually warranted. There is the problem of occasionally finding a road obstacle (usually railroad tracks) that will cause the bumper to drag or hang up but I think a good portion of those have been fixed (I hope, lol) or marked as no truck.
5 comments:
She's just adorable!
Awwwwwwww! Thaks for that Gabby! We just call it a "car catcher" and, like you, it has been mandatory - except here it has been since the late 70's. Ours don't need to be quite as low - looking at the example you show.
Mind you, I figure that you are just as dead whether you decapitate yourself on the way through of concertina yourself!!!!!!!!
Wouldn't it be better/safer/make more sense if driver competency was raised to such an extent that cars didn't bother making love to the back of your trailer?
Oooops! I forgot! Whether it is USA or Oz, car drivers are VOTERS and politicians are terrified of them, thus you do something so as to be SEEN to be doing something (by applying a bandaide solution) without achieving a bloody thing!
Thanks, even! Bloody typo!
Hmmm.... Is that an illusion. Your bumper looks very low??
And I love the Elsie photos!!
Terry, optical illusion due to bad camera angle, being in a hurry, and I think I was parked in a hole to boot. Normal height bumper. Although the trailer I have today would be a good example where the dock lock was still engaged and the driver pulled out. Nice little bend right in the middle, lol.
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