Trucks and Wreckers News.

Accidents occur every year as workers use aerial devices to gain access to hard to reach locations. Telephone, electric and tree service companies often use articulated boom aerial devices, commonly referred to “bucket trucks“, to install, service, and maintain telephone lines and electrical conductors. Defectively designed or improperly used “bucket trucks” can result in workers literally “falling out of the sky”, causing serious or fatal injuries.

According to ANSI, the design of articulated boom aerial devices is covered in ANSI A92.2 “Vehicle-mounted Elevating and Rotating Aerial Devices”. Self-propelled and manually propelled elevated work platforms are covered in ANSI A92.6 and A92.3, respectfully.

Two potential types of accidents involving “bucket trucks” which would result in operators “falling out of the sky” are an overturn and boom failure.

Outriggers are often used in the design of “bucket trucks” to increase stability. Overturn accidents may be the result of using the vehicle on an excessively sloped surface, improper use of outriggers, overloading of boom/bucket or defective design of vehicle which includes the outriggers. Accident investigation of the circumstances, area of overturn and manufacturers’ specifications should be evaluated to determine the cause of the overturns.

“Bucket trucks” may be designed to use either hydraulic systems or electrical systems to raise and lower the booms. ANSI A92.2 requires that either design have safety features that would prevent movement of the boom or bucket in the event of a hydraulic line failure or a loss of power. Boom failure can be the result of a defectively designed safety system or an improperly maintained hydraulic or electrical system.

Properly designed and operated articulated boom aerial devices, “bucket trucks“, can reduce the number of accidents where operators literally “fall out of the sky”.

Seen on one forum…

The lady in this new 4wd hit the accelerator instead of the brake, went through the back wall of her garage, slid along the edge of the pool and the slid into the pool and floated across and sank. She wasn’t hurt.

Now for the problems. The pool couldn’t be pumped out , as the area has a high water table, and the pool would lift if empty. A crane from the road couldn’t be use as it was over 50 metres to a area they could set up, and there is power lines in the narrow street. The house blocks surrounding the back yard of the pool area were all inaccessible as there was no access past the houses into their backyards. It wasn’t a direct line through garage to car as it when it slid off pool edge it floated to other side of pool. The shed is about 10 metres long and has a fairly low front entrance that only a car could fit in …

The ramp idea was what we wanted to trie but the worst part was the way the pool was shaped made it near impossible to get them in a position where u could get the car to line up with the hole in the wall. We scatched our head a bit and then ended up cleaning off some of the loose bits off the rear wall of the shed. We then backed the rear of our little UD recovery truck in as far as we could,it was a tight squeeze. We put out both its boom extensions and ran a couple straps through the rear wheels. The back came up easy, and we used boards on the front wheels. We did have a bit of trouble getting the front wheel closest to the house to come up, as the angle of the pool wall worked against us. We ended up using a 4wd high lift jack to lift that side and a cargo strap and ratchet off the bottom of the blue post on the veranda of the house and lifted and winched the front across. Job went well, and got to keep cool in the pool during the recovery.

Nice experience, agree?

Nussbaum’s Sales Corp. is proud to present a new web site design, structure, and functionality - launched in November 2007.

The Nussbaum Wreckers & Carriers site has changed a lot since our first site went online. We hope this site is more attractive and easy to use. Much of the site content has been updated and we are now planning to launch new Parts Store.

When we decided redesign the Nussbaum Wreckers & Carriers web site several months ago, we had a few primary goals in mind:

- Make sure the new design will be modern and attractive.

- Update our product catalog to have more quality photos and better structure.

- Create search tools to easily find inventory.

- Provide a visually appealing and easy-to-use site.

Of course it’s hard to measure success for most of these; we feel that the new site design meets these goals. We know that there is probably much more that we can do to make our site more accessible, usable, and informative. If you have recommendations, please contact us.