If you haven’t secured your load and it breaks my wind shield, you’re liable. I don’t care what warning you may have written on your truck and neither does insurance nor the law (in the US at least).
These warnings DO serve a purpose, even when they are legally void. People tend to follow less closely behind trucks, secure their belongings when parking, and take other actions to avoid the clearly indicated potential loss.
If a load breaks and cracks your windshield the truck is likely liable, but depending on how close you were following you may share some liability as well – especially if you, say, collide with the truck or another car after your windshield breaks. The law may hold that the sign has no effect, but itll be hard to convince a jury that you didnt know the truck was a potential hazard after you say that you saw it.
Another great example in the US is the warranty void if open stickers.
They’ve been unenforceable since 1975.
You still have to sue to make them honor the warranty, though, which is immediately more expensive than the product itself most times. They do quite often tell you to kick sand if you tamper with the warranty void stickers because they know they can get away with it.
Lina Khan tried to make the stickers illegal IIRC, but of course Trump got rid of all of her improvements.
Of course, tamper-evident stickers would be very difficult to ban; for example, most game consoles just have a tamper-evident sticker with the manufacturer’s logo on it. It doesn’t say anything about the warranty, but at best they’ll go looking for reasons to blame you for any damage if you send it in for repair.
Doesn’t matter if you get hit in the face by a fallen brick.
Often not getting into a situation in the first place is far better than being in the right.
Brilliant insight.
Isn’t that warning more about braking distance so you don’t smack into the back of it if they slam the brakes on?
As far as I know, passenger vehicles outperform trucks at breaking distance. At least if those are carrying load. An empty modern truck will change that around, though. So don’t tailgate them.
Dunno what they teach people in imperial units, but I’d feel safe with 50m of distance regarding this situation and talking total breaking distance.
I was taught to watch the car ahead (same lane) as it passes a static object. For every 10mph you are traveling, you should have one second of braking/response distance. So this image at the posted limit should have empty space for 6 seconds before the driver of the following vehicle passes the same object.
In reality it’s about half that, maybe a third.
Fascinating. I think what we have here is a 2 second rule. You’d fix on some static object next to the car ahead, count two seconds and you shouldn’t be passing it before that. Disregarding speed if both cars are moving at the same speed. Easier rule (and what I went with) is half the number on the speedometer. So 50m at 100km/h and that happens to be an easy number in Germany because that’s exactly the distance of the reflector posts next to rural roads and motorways.
Seems we do 4 seconds less than your rule?! But then maybe that’s the reason why I try to get the distance right… Well until rush hour or the really crowded places, that just seems to be exempt from any rules or common sense 😅
Edit: Do other people learn a second per 10mph as well? I mean we’re supposed to do more safety distance when wet / bad conditions or there’s a bend or hilltop, but 2 and 6 seconds being correct for good conditions at the same speed seems like a crazy difference to me.
This was taught by a family member police officer that did accident reconstruction, and it was reinforced when I was taking drivers ed in high school. The general population doesn’t know and doesn’t get tested on following distance, at least not when I was tested. But here (big big capital city) 2 is typical, and anything over 4 makes people cut your off a lot. Our rush hour starts around 2 and ends around 8, the population vs the road infrastructure is just way too much, has been for like 20 years.
I was responding to a collision that happened in front of me, as a first responder (cpr + first aid certified, at the time). A Rav4 slammed into an older (90s) Corolla at highway+ speeds (traffic was moving about 70-75 mph immediately before). The corolla braked for traffic, and the rav4 did not. I’m directing people to call 911, trying to get the driver out of the corolla (it was a hard hit, the backseat was partially crushed, the trunk was non-existent, driver door jammed because frame buckling), the driver of the rav4 wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and slammed into the windshield, so blood all over it, the car, his head. While I’m trying to offer medical aid, people are slowly down to look - this was about 11 at night, still fairly busy highway - and again someone not watching, braked, swerved, tried to split between two cars in the center-most lanes (high occupancy vehicle lane, and ‘high speed’ lane). The sound of metal from all 3 was so loud, and I got to watch it, less than 30 feet from me. None of the cars involved in that collision stopped. But the car that tried to split must have been going at a difference of ~30mph above the cars slowing down. About 45 seconds later, police arrived, limited the lanes and slowed traffic properly (I only had my warning triangle with me, vs 3 lanes were effectively blocked with cars and debris. But during the busy times, you can see multiple crashes one right after the other because traffic density just multiplies the risk.
Just a mix of inattentiveness + speed/not enough time to react has been several crashes I was witness/first responder to.
Wow. Thanks for sharing. I don’t know what to say… Guess memories like that stick. Luckily I just had very few near death experiences on the road and the accidents I’ve been involved in or helped were within city limits, so at lower speed and people were about okay. But yeah, cars are potentially dangerous machines. Killing someone, or nearly killing someone is some kind of wake-up call to pay attention. But we should all really try hard to make an effort to get it right before this happens.
I think it’s the same with the uptake in cars here. I’ve been driving for roughly 20 years now. If I remember correctly, rush hour is way longer today as it used to be back then.
The ones that get me are the reserved parking spots for people who aren’t disabled. Sure a private business could choose to call a tow but no police officer or state entity is going to get involved and they can’t prove I’m not whatever random type of person they’ve reserved the spot for
I couldn’t give a shit about these.
Pregnant? Find a doctor who will get you a placard. Veteran? Find a doctor who will get you a placard. Cop? Fuck you. Picking up something quickly? Nobody cares.
If it’s not handicapped specific, I just use it.
I don’t know which pedal I should be smashing.
That like button for the youtu- 🚚💥🚙
Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that’s what gets you. - Jeremy Clarkson
Suddenly accelerating has killed a couple people.
It’s especially bad when different parts of your body accelerate in different directions.
Depends on the state and burden of proof.
Well yes - but the sign is not factored in. If you can prove it without the sign present then adding it provides 0 coverage.
