Story that really happened

About 20 years ago My best friend [when we where growing up] and his two brothers quit farming and started doing heavy equipment work. They were all tired of the ups and downs of truck farming. Back then farmers were going to trickle irrigation so everyone around needed a large pond to draw from. They decided to buy a large excavator and were trying out different brands.One particular day they were trying out a large Case. My friend drove their brand new Ford dually [still has paper tag on it] to try out this Case that had just been delivered. He parks it and hops on the machine. He starts digging and gets lost in thought about this machine and the others they had tried out, after a couple of hours a sparkle on the ground below him catches his eye. It was the sun reflecting off the mirror of there brand new truck. He had backed right over it and was sitting right on top and didn't realize it. I saw the truck it was flat as a biscuit. Any thing like that ever happen to you?

No , Not yet , but with my luck , its only time . the sad part about it is that the truck I will tare up will not be mine !

It's hard to believe an operator don't know he's driving over a pick-up truck, does he drive with his eyes closed?

Back in 1992 when we built the big shop on my property I was manuvering around with the JD 310A backhoe after bumping a pole out of kilter while trying to avoid a guy wire. Backed the hoe into the side of my own really nice Jeep J-10 pick-up and folded the driver's side of the box in. Thought Dad was going to have a stroke he was laughing so hard. He had made the statement that I ought to move it after I off loaded 20 sheets of plywood 1/2 hour earlier.

Case never made a hoe big enough to back over a truck without feeling it. Not one that could be delivered by truck, anyway.

Last summer I was pulling out of drive with swather loaded on imp. trailer. It looked like the overhang of the swather was going to hit the mailbox. So what do I do? I just keep going. Sure enough I caught the box and smashed it. What the hell was I thinking? I new it was going to hit but kept going anyway.

This happened at the "Black Diamond" coal mine neaar White Oak, Oklahoma. A fellow was driving his scraper {657 Cat, front and rear engines, 57 cubic yard capacity, - big} near where the employees park their trucks...and got a little close. Three pickups were instantly flattened. The best one was one of those Chevy, Isuzu LUV pickups. The tallest part of the remains looked to be about 14 inches high.

Not far away near Welch Oklahoma, a dragline operator {we'll call him Johnny} had been eyeing a willow tree that he wanted for his yard. He figured up the shift changes, the rate of dig, and the approximate reach of the boom. When the time was right, he had his truck parked perfectly in the dumping range of the drag bucket. {A dragline dumps the bucket best out toward the end of the boom}

So our friend Johnny scoops up this little willow tree, swings around and dumps it into his truck and all is well...Except that when he releases the drag brake to dump the bucket, the lip of the bucket drops down and kisses the side of his 3 year old Chevy. The bed is nearly ripped from the frame. The left side of the bed in now over a foot to the right. No word as to how Johnny managed to explain all this, and my apologies if he is reading.

look kind of like this? no injuries but the new at the time chevy got worn out pretty quick

LIKE A ROCK

I saw it I don't remember the numbers the cab set higher off the turntable than other machines. They ended up buying a 300 Komatsu and still have it today.
Ron

My nieghbour had a nice F250 diesel parked in the field at harvest, and the grain cart operator didn't see it and backed over it. The truck had $18000 damage, the grain cart $0.(the tire lined up perfect with the truck).

A few years ago a neighbor arrived at the cornfield and proceeded to chew out his son (about 20 years old) for not having more of the field harvested by that time of the day. He demoted his son to another job and took over the combine himself. First thing he did was pivot the combine 180 degrees to the right and wrap the unloading auger around a utility pole. Harvest was done for the day.....

Just one about a good ole boy here that worked a lot of acres. Could be easy going or a pain,depending on the day. He was kind of getting a kick out of it when he told the story. Backed his brand new pickup into a plow and put a pretty good dent in it. Somebody at the fertilizer plant asked him whos fault that was. He laughed and said he chewed out the guy who parked the polw there.

After you run heavy equipment over somewhat rugged terrain, you get accustomed to certain bumps and such. When you're running a large piece of equipment (such as a loader in a mine or dump truck in above pic) bumps combo w/ blind spots make it not as hard as one might think.

I used to work with a guy that was known as "Mister Clean". He was known for being very precise in how he drove a truck and how he took care of it. He never abused it in any way. One day while backing a trailer (semi dry van) thru a driveway opening into a parking lot, He bumped a light pole and knocked it down. The pole fell down and hit his own pickup. A pristine 10+ year old Chevy. He had a hard time living that one down.
Tim in OR