Tanker accident Mona Vale

Richard, pretty much anyone who runs a business or is involved in is in the same hot seat.
Big difference with road transport I suppose is the potential for a fatal accident is higher, but if something happened in your work shop that resulted in a fatal accident you are in as much trouble.

There will always be accidents, where all concerned have done their job and something still goes wrong. But there are the other cases, where a culture of turning a blind eye, cost cutting and passing the buck eventually ends up killing somebody. Hopefully we can always see that distinction.
I am not making any judgement on the Cootes case.

G'day

So I've just read the whole thread and no one has asked who actually owns the prime mover??

I know cootes went through a period there a few years back trying to convince long time employees of cootes to become owner drivers. I have a mate who did this with 2 trucks. He drove one and then employed another bloke to drive the second one. As far as I know the trailers were still owned by cootes.

So the question is, where does the cor stop with maintainence on these owner driver prime movers???

Oh and by the way, saw my first rollover today on my way back home. O'sullivans stock crate at koonamoo, certainly made me feel a bit funny seeing it on its side.

Cheers

....i believe from a very reliable source it was an older company truck due to be traded (at the time) in two weeks time......

dig a I believe cor would still rest with cootes I know cor rests with me the cane farmer for the haulout drivers and they are employed by another contractor so I am meant to make sure they have training and tickets before they start the season good luck finding out any of that ah this modern world has a lot answer for seeya
Paul

In regards the all inclusive extent of the Chain of Responcability,
As a simpletion driver, once I realised that even the foklift driver had a legal responcability to me not to give me a dud pallet ie a leaker/ a loose pack/ concealed dangerous or hazardous good. . . (or not to correct makeing me to heavy on one side),

It put the wind up some of the forkies I worked with.

And the forkie, as a servant of his company dragged his employer into the COR.

Sort of good in some ways, but likewise, if I ignored the fact that I was a little bit overloaded say, (arh, its not going far, put it on) the the shite lay on my head if thing went pear shaped while I was in charge of the load. (Then my boss etc.)

Likewise though, If my boss didn't respond appropriatly to my report of haveing to top up the brake fluid resivoir every morning. . . well, that sort of puts him into the gun straight away too dunnit?

Also remember the recent discussion about Woolies and Coles dispatchers setting unrealistic delivery times.

Like Aussie rules footy, hand ball is a large part of the game.

That's the extent of my understanding, for the job I was doing at the time. Bosses and managers and insurance companys. . . can figure out what applies to them on their own.

I just drove, and thats all I really needed to understand. (Cover your ass.)

-b

As a driver, you need to be aware where you stand re COR. In my last driving job, we were asked to sign a chit every time you took a truck out on the road. Had various boxes ie speedo reading, trailer number, and things you had to tick off ie lights, wipers, tyres, brakes etc ... I would always do a tug test and try the brakes at low speed in the yard, but realistically a driver cannot sign off that a truck's brakes are roadworthy. ie one axle could be out of action or a drum cracked. Perhaps this document was merely a passing the buck exercise by management.
Getting back, if I may, to the technical side of air brake systems. Is it possible that a problem in the parking / emergency valve that Swishy mentioned could take out both main and emergency braking systems on a semi??

...g'day atki .. at least on American trucks, the park and service brakes work off the two main air tanks (wet and dry)...beyond that the third tank (emergency) has very little use, other than draining the cocks to help keep the whole system clean....

...the emergency air as previously mentioned is for the RELEASE of the brakes....not for the application.... and an old trick to getting an air start Mack going when there is not enough air in the ''normal'' system, is to press the brake treddle till there is no air left at all, then with a biro or something similar, push the plunger in the air start solenoid.....this enables air to be released from the third (emergency) tank to the air starter ...once again air is available for an ''emergency'' (i.e no normal air) situation....

Tective
Gudday M8

EyeDoSt&2BCorrectedondis

1st tank down stream from compressor = wet tank collects oil n water
this then supplies the 2nd tank where it supplies air to the primemover brakes as well as wipers, difflock,truck parking brake etc etcthe 2nd tank then supplies air to the 3rd tank that supplies air to a fu left over air gadgets n this 3rd tank could B a split tank make n it now the 4th air tank th@ supplies air to truck emergency parking brake release
etc
then last .... the air start tanks gets the left overs n cuts the compressor govoner out @ 120psi

May B
LOL
cya

That's the way it use to be Swishy, but with the advent of dual circuit systems in the late 70's you more typically had 2 dry tanks after the wet - one each for the primary and secondary circuit. The emergency release for the spring brakes was dispensed with or handled differently.

I dare say there's bit of electronics involved in contemporary trucks so we need a younger bloke to explain how that works!