A sad little story out of Washington state gives rise to this reminder.
A man and his wife were motoring down the road in their Winnebago when something went wrong. He managed to pull off the freeway and onto the off-ramp. After climbing under the rig with a screwdriver, he called out to his wife and asked her to see if the motorhome would start. It did. Unfortunately, it was either in–or somehow got into–reverse gear. It wasn’t until the wife had backed up a number of yards that she (you guessed it) spotted her husband lying on the pavement. The motorhome wheel had gone over his chest.
At press time the man was alive, but in critical condition.
In a perfect world, none of us would think to ask somebody to see if the rig would start while we’re underneath it. Well, okay, most of us wouldn’t. Nevertheless, wheel chocking might have prevented this tragedy. Wheel chocking (or blocking) is a big deal for industrial safety consultants, and it often comes up when somebody forgets to chock the wheel on a delivery trailer at a loading dock. Along comes the unsuspecting fork lift driver, the trailer slips, and the whole works comes apart–too often with the folk lift operator and his machinery taking a big dive.
How do you “properly” chock a wheel? Ideally you’ll use the proper chock, not just a handy rock or a chunk of 2×4. Nearly any Walmart has plastic wheel chocks in the automotive section–they’re lightweight and inexpensive. Get two. If there’s any concern about your rig rolling, say when you’re changing a tire, unhitching the trailer, etcetera, chock a wheel. That means firmly sticking a chock tight up against the tire on BOTH sides, or in the cause of tandem axles, one behind the rear tire, and one in front of the leading tire.
When changing a tire, chock the wheel that’s on a diagonal from the tire to be changed. We recently blew a tire on our trip car–the passenger side front. The tow truck driver, who wasn’t all that bright (but that’s another story) finally thought maybe he should have the parking brake on, but really, he’d have been better to paired up two chocks on the street side rear tire. But then, he’s the same guy who asked me how to convert 80 kph to “pounds.” When I asked him what he was after, he pointed to the sticker on the “donut” spare tire that listed the maximum speed for the spare in kilometers per hour. He was standing there with an air line in his hand, and (I swear) a dumb look on his face.
No user responded in this post