I make my living building roll cages. One important thing I have to say about driving with a roll cage is, wear a helmet and proper 6 point seat belts to protect yourself from the cage. The Monteros have proven themselves repeatedly to provide us as much protection as available on the street. Adding a cage will both stiffen the bodyshell increasing the G loads during a heavy impact as well as a strong chance for blunt object injury to the head.
Here in America we have very few regulations as far as modifications we do to our vehicles but overseas some countries do not even allow roll cages in road cars unless the vehicle is actively used in competition.

I do drive caged cars on the street and am very aware of both the benefits and danger of adding a cage in a vehicle. I have also seen too many poorly made cages that encroach on the passenger area or front tubes that are not forward of the pedals increasing the chance of foot entrapment in frontal impact. There is no place to scrimp on safety gear and the streets are not the best place for some types of safety gear or devices.

GWs Montero did the best it could to protect his family in a very hard multiple strike impact. A cage would not have helped and more than likely might have caused massive head injuries. He and his fiance survived. She has suffered serious injuries and I expect is a long way from walking the streets. It is sad that they lost their child but they will both be able to get back to life in a case where a rollcage might have been the wrong safety device.

The pan I ran (somewhat smaller than the 657e above, a ts24 euclid) never had working brakes, and we ran it for about 3000hrs that way without incident, including the time the operator got tired of waiting for the lowboy and just drove it down the road to the next job site, about 15 miles. DOT didn't catch him until he was within 2 miles of the new job. The only way to slow that beast down was to lower the cutting edge, and it was SHARP by the time he got stopped for the DOT. The two tickets were for overweight (2 axles, 25tons dry weight) and no tag. It was never scary to operate, because you never stopped all day long except for lunch and quittin' time. This tractor used linked loading, where two tractors would link nose to tail and one loaded while the other helped pull, all 4 motors at full throttle in lowest gear. That was two 12v72's and two 8v72 Detroit two stroke diesels at full bellow.

Rule 1, don't get in front of moving heavy metal.

if memory serves, we have several professional drivers here that can attest to this... this unfortunate yet fortunate accident at the same time can be summed up one way. this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object and something is caught in the middle.

i am permitted up to 84k lbs, rarely reach it given the nature of my deliveries. however, when im pulling loaded doubles my permit weight goes up quite abit although my days of pulling doubles are basically over since im on a dedicated route now.

Fact: vast majority of 4 wheelers (car driving folks) are oblivious to our presence and treat us as an inanamate object to get around regardless of if were in town or on the hwy.

Fiction: handling of a 18 wheeler is similar to a full size truck pulling a modest 5th wheel.

Fact: our braking system is air operated, and there is only so much air. then there is heat... the more you try to stop the hotter the brakes get (while lessening you air pressure) thus drastically reducing your braking power as the brake pads get hot and "soften". this is why there are "runaway truck ramps" on most steep grades. drivers unfamiliar, or maybe pressed by hours or miles dont grab a gear low enough for their jake to properly slow their tractor. they simply get their brakes so hot that they become ineffective and from there physics kicks in. pure mass, the pull of gravity, low air pressure due to contant breaking or the heat created from constant breaking is the making of an unstoppable object. even if a truck isnt overspeed while attempting the grade, they soon will be (and quite quickly) if they are not in the proper gear. the vast majority of professional drivers move slow and with perpose while allowing 4wheelers to treat us the way they do... point a to point b without incident.

Fact: the vast majority of accidents involving a professional driver and a 4 wheeler were caused by the the 4 wheeler. we are more likely than not to be cited, because we are professionals. i have experienced this.

Fiction: if we do hit something (or somebody hits us) we will know it. wrong. wrong. wrong. at the most, its a bump if that. while at a dead stop pulling a half full 45', i was rear ended by a drunk driver doing 65mph. i barely felt it, my icc bar barely had a scratch on it and the drunk drivers car was a pile of smoldering metal and plastic that was barely recognizable as a car. he survived without major injure because of his intoxication.

Fact: when a combination with full air and cool breaks locks them up, the trailer will come around. its physics, the weight behind the tractor will not want to stop and 16 tires that are suddenly stopped will not (most of the time) hinder the trailer from acting like some sort of boom from hell sweeping either left or right until it sweeps completely around and is either flipped (taking the tractor with it) or hits something that cannot and will not be moved.

Fiction: tractor trailers stop just as good as they go when the road is even slightly wet... this does not include frozen. we do not. we cannot. if you can barely stop given road conditions, multiply that by 10 if were loaded and its only wet. when you throw winter into the mix, it gets very very complicated for us regardless of if we are chained up or not.

Fact: the vast majority of otr or dedicated local route drives want to get from point a to point b as fast as possible.

Fiction: anybody outside of the profession understanding that giving us a wide birth is a good idea.

My point is this:
If you do not give us a wide birth, if you do not respect that fact that we do not go, turn, stop anything remotely like a car under normal circumstances at best you're wrong and if you do not realize that if you cut us off and decide to stop... your done. that much mass meeting that much stupidity... its amazing that you dont hear about more fatalities.

I am not trying to obsolve the driver that rear ended gr, he was obviously in the wrong. he will pay for it not only financially, but emotionally.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing you could possibly do to escape the physics of it. there is no cage, no body mount bolt, no weld... there isnt anything you or anybody else can do to escape the results besides being a conscious, aware and considerate driver.

Every time i drive, i see people take their lives into their own hands in how they handle us given their own sheer ignorance. i am on a route that is considered local, i dont haul the weight most of the time of somebody otr, but i log more hours (legal dot hours) and close to the amount of miles. i do this on some of the most treacherous streaches of road in the lower 48.

That being said, i would sooner scuttle my truck and load(if i still even have remote control of it) before hitting a car. chances are, when that does happen again i wont be so lucky. like i said mass + velocity + human stupidity ='s somebody loosing their life... there is no mod that can change this. nothing physical that can be done. not the better car seat, not the better crumple zone, not the better bumper... not a dam thing you or anybody else can do... physics is fact. nothing except a mental change that produces awareness that will never happen amoungst the sheeple.

This is beyond being an unfortunate incident involving one of our own that will have lasting consequences across the board, all of it seemingly rests at the feet of one professional driver that either wasnt paying close enough attention or was in a hurry.

Happy motoring people.

Dude....

regardless of howmany times i hit crtl+-, thats unreadable. but really, my grammar? if anything you shouldotta know by know considering how long ive been around, i really dont care. i type as i think <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/nana.gif" alt="" />. if your attempting to provide levity, good on ya but none the less <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/nana.gif" alt="" />.

If you took that much time to type something out, you must care that folks read it...

While I am FAR FAR from the grammar nazi........

It's unfortunate that your post is unreadable because it is obvious that you took quite a bit of time to type it out. Some capital letters, and periods in the right places would make it much more readable.

Gentlemen, this thread is not about 'us' but about an idea resolving the installation of a roll bar/crash cage system.

As a general rule, we the readers have some expectation of readability and decorum amongst the responses to various things; however, and often, those that have important things to say often have difficulty in punctuation and grammar. So what! I am happy to hear the words of a truck driver regarding the 'care' that other drivers take around rigs on the road. I mentally bet the outcome of many near-traffic mishaps when I see a small vehicle maneuver around a rig...as grass13 points out, they 'take their lives in their own hands' and all too often survive to perform the same action again. Another example of luck versus physics. Though lengthy and heavy reading, I applaud the points provided.

There are larger issues that we face that need to have fighting words over, even simply raised tones. Let's bring up the last sky scraper to be demolished in NYC that made Yahoo news this morning, or the tragedy of Ms. Giffords and her audience in Arizona.

Please, to your respective corners now. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

Lazy <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/butwiggle.gif" alt="" />!!!

The return key is on the right side of your keyboard.

Don't worry. I fixed it as best as I could or was willing to for you.

Ha ha! Thanks, Ray. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I know I know by know how to punctuate better.


<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />





All in good fun Grass. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />