I've seen quite a few thread like this, so I'm going to throw everything I've wanted to chime in with on this one. I'm going to play the devils advocate here for a sec, bear with me: Why is this happening so much more frequently lately, or is it just the media cherry-picking for the ratings. Snow and ice have been falling off roofs since horses pulled buggy's fast enough to do it. I'm not trying to minimize it's importance or severity, but everything comes with a price. There's a lot broader picture than us pulling out of our barns every night. Think beyond a few injuries, or I venture to even say deaths, to the cost of cleaning off EVERY trailer, ANYWHERE, going out on the road after a snowstorm has built up anything on the roof. Scrapers, brushes, and rakes in our yards is one thing. If "every" driveway, "everywhere" a vehicle that could accumulate ice or snow could drive, had over it a device to mount a blade or a rake and some sort of beater, not heater, to loosen any ice, along with someone to clear snow out of the driveway after a truck that accumulated snow on their property drove out, the property owner would scream. That is unless the laws were written to include them for not having it. Likewise, how can a cleaning crew be called into any shipper to clean off one of our trailers that's been sitting there for a day or two and has a foot of drifted fluff on the roof. And lesser of a driver problem, but one for the shipper, what do they do with the snow and ice from the roof just dumped in the parking lot? Are they liable in any way for not letting a driver try to clean snow or have someone come in and clean off his roof before he enters public right-of-way? What choices would they/should they have? After all, the trucker didn't put the snow there, and the trailer isn't in the shape we left it on their property with all that new snow on top. How much is reasonably clean-most intermodal cans have corrugated roofs the blades won't work well on and would have to be stiff-brushed. So who picks up the tab? For once, not the taxpayers on this one, must be the companies, ultimately you and I.
Nik, you've done wonderful research, but this is why you got the brush off from the higher-up's--They don't know! Nobody above them knows what to do either. Public pressure and lawsuits will do the trick for the relatively rare times anything like these occurences happens. And really, public pressure isn't that intense yet or this would have been addressed 80 years ago, or at least enforced in the few places it can be. Most of the examples you cited included leaving material on roadways. Those more often specifically cover things like gravel falling out of a truck, or leaving snow on the road when you plow your driveway out across the road into the opposite bank, stuff like that. It's material that was placed by man in a manner that could have been done so no mess was made on the roadway to endanger vehicles. From your links, very few states contain laws that actually and directly cover snow falling off a truck or car without a lengthy stretch of law, and they know that. That's why they have to write new laws to address it. Car cleaning laws are generally written to require visibilty, cars just don't have that much snow or ice on them to do damage comparable to the amount on a truck. And given the test, snow on the roof of a vehicle is "act of God" and truly isn't really cargo (or freight) by any stretch of the definition(except when weight issues arise). It's snow on the roof. Can't be one for cars, and not for trucks. Either way, it's a fascinating dilemma that quite frankly, hasn't really been addressed at all yet and nobody really has any real answers on how to eliminate the problem; the truckers, the shippers, or the policy makers. All in all, it's still the drivers responsiblity, even if he's on an exit ramp or rest area in Bum-Wherever, taking hours, waiting for the storm to die down before heading out with a few inches on the roof. Even if it's the icicles running down the side of the trailer when it starts to melt that break off. Even if it's the big chunk of not-so-slushy stuff that falls off the truck in a snowstorm , rolls and bounces a couple times, and takes out the grille on a Hyundai before the guy swerves, loses it and ends up in the ditch. It's always the truck drivers fault. Maybe we need shiny helmets.
Whatever happened to snow or ice being "Act of God", clean it off REASONABLY and we all just take some chances, much like we have for eons. Never mind....It's easier just to be safe, sit back and watch somebody else clean-up the mess because they have the right equipment! And its probably a whole lot less costly in the long run. Like you said Nik, "it's your license, use it wisely". Not only is it my license, it's a life I don't want to inject any more problems than necessary into. CYA comes to mind! Now if it could be realistically and uniformally implemented, interpreted, and followed by everybody, even better. I'm not holding my breath. Matter of fact, maybe I should look into buying an old bucket truck, mount a blade, brush and a vibrator from an old sand compactor on the boom, put a plow blade on the front of the truck and see how it goes in my off time. Any investors or customer referals? Times- a-wasting;spring's right around the corner, but there's always next winter. lol
Dave