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Rider hits unsecured mattress in tunnel

Rider hits unsecured mattress in tunnel
Rider hist mattress in tunnel

An Ipswich rider has hit a mattress that fell off a trailer in a Brisbane tunnel at 80km/h and police are lived to tell the tale after performing an impromptu “endo”.

Contractor Aaron Wood said the “endo” was so severe he tore the grips off the bars of his Honda CBR1000RR.

Aaron was following a Toyota Prado through the Clem 7 tunnel on the night of March 28, 2017, when an unsecured mattress flew out of the back of a cage trailer it was towing.

He hit the mattress and came to an abrupt stop, lucky not to be rear-ended. The mattress was lodged under the bike near the exhaust and began to smoulder before being pulled out.

“I have been riding for 20 years and never had something like this happen,” he told The Queensland Times.

Ipswich police are checking the tunnel CCTV footage, but it is very difficult to read the number plate of the vehicle.

A police media spokesperson says if they locate the driver they could be charged with “Fail to ensure load on private light vehicle complies with requirements” and face a $243 fine.

UPDATE: Read how much the driver was fined.

Rider hits unsecured mattress in tunnelAustralian authorities receive tens of thousands of callouts a year to collect debris from our roads.

It includes household goods, building materials and green waste, causing road closures, disruptions, injuries and deaths.

Most vulnerable to these unsecured loads are motorcyclists.

Most riders have witnessed all sorts of things flying off the backs of trucks and pick-ups, but the worst culprits seem to be tradies.

Perhaps they are in a rush to get home or to the next job, but too many don’t secure their loads properly.

Take a look at the side of our freeways. They are littered with tradies’ hard hats, rubber boots, gloves and tools.

Other motorists to avoid are weekend gardeners taking their load to the dump in a hired trailer. They are not professional transport operators, so they don’t know how to secure a load properly. Give them a wide berth.

It’s not as if the police and authorities don’t care about unsecured loads.Unsecured load police

Police frequently blitz for unsecured loads and the fines range from several hundred dollars to several thousand, depending on the risk level of the spilt load.

However, a fine won’t help a rider recovering in hospital from hitting a loose load. Instead, it’s our responsibility to stay away from any vehicle with a loose load.

And if you see a dangerous load, report it to the police.

This video of an American rider crashing into a load that had fallen off the back of a boat trailer being pulled by an SUV is a lesson in never following vehicles with dodgy looking loads.

Rider Brendan Jankowski, 20, doesn’t seem to be following very closely, but it is close enough for him not to be able to avoid the load of rolled-up foam that falls off. He hits it square on and flips over.

Luckily, he only received minor injuries.

It’s a good lesson to be aware of trucks and pickups carrying loads secured only by ropes and ties.

  1. I avoid following any vehicle with stuff strapped to it after I nearly got wiped out by a tradie’s step ladder that came flying off the back of his ute. Half the time Joe Public can’t even manage to tie his shoelaces properly let alone secure a load. Truckies are pretty good though, unless its one of those rubbish skip trucks.

    1. Your spot on Jeff.
      But you forgot the boxes of screws, rivits and nails, tradies lose, I’d like a dollar for every puncture I’ve had to fix of the side of the road.
      Its one of my greatest fears as a motorcyclist, wearing a lost load
      Travelling on Victoria’s busiest Hwy daily, proves beyond doubt your analogy, Joe Public and tying shoe laces. I like it, can I use it sometime?

      As always
      Ride free ride safe.

  2. Flying rocks can be interesting if you’re doing the dodging.
    I try to get in front of them. I’d rather lose points than be dead.

  3. Worst unsecured load I missed by inches was a 6 man canvas tent. Really glad I stopped in time for that one it weighed a ton.

  4. Always give a very wide birth to any truck leaving a construction site especially dump trucks. They some times have stuff lodged in the duals that flys out like a missile. I once saw a large rock come out of a dual go through the windshield of a car behind it and out the back bounce off the A pillar of the car behind it smashing the windshield also and take out the windshield of a bus going the other way. Fortunately no one panicked and slammed on the brakes .

  5. Had a car cut me off on the Pacific Motorway, resisted the urge to overtake him and give him the bird, stayed well behind only to have him run foul of a stack of concretors reo that fell off the ute I’d been following but which was now in front of the car that cut me off. I had plenty of time to get around, but Mr Cutoff hit all the reo. I didn’t see what happened next as I was already around them and on my way. And no, I wasn’t stopping in peak hour traffic to see if he was ok!

  6. I ride up and down Old Belair Road commuting in and out of Adelaide every day. It’s a great little stretch, which currently has a streak of spilled white paint stretching halfway along the uptrack. I was a couple of cars behind the tradie van when he was leaking the paint (probably about 18months ago), he was completely oblivious to the car following flashing their lights and beeping their horn. An interesting experience trying to avoid wet paint as it’s running onto the road, and still slippery in the worst affected parts when the surface is damp.

  7. I was heading north from Sydney, near Toronto, when a car towing a ski boat entered from a road on my left onto the road in front of me all slow, safe & proper. He had a ski rope wrapped nice & neat around the ski handle that was sitting on the right rear deck, must have forgotten to put it in the boat after rolling it up. As the boat went around the corner the ski handle was flung off, & just like a skier on the whip, the rope unravelled & the handle shot across the road & wrapped around a post, the end result was the boat was pulled off the trailer & the ski rope was strung about 1 metre high right across the road. It happened as though it was in slow motion & luckily I had time to stop. The driver couldn’t believe what happened & said he only secured the boat by the winch cable as he lived just up the road from the launching ramp.

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