First of all, I'm fine. Not a scratch.
Well, I guess I screwed up. I had to pick up a load of hay from a farm near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Got there, got it loaded, strapped, tarped, and ready to go. But before I can head for home, I had to get it weighed. So the guy that had loaded the trailer hopped in his little Civic and we started down the driveway to head for the nearest scale.
Well, that'* as far as we got. His driveway has a gentle incline down from the house, but it also is built up above his front yard about three or four feet, and has a sharp crown to it. Well, with the weather the way it'* been, it was also covered in compacted snow, which was in turn covered by fresh powder. This makes it very slippery, and also makes it very hard to tell exactly where the top of the crown in the driveway is. So I get about halfway down the driveway, only going about 5-10mph, and I feel the truck starting to drift a little to the right. I turn the wheel slightly to the left, and nothing happens.
The god damn truck just keeps going off to the right. Nothing I do turns it or slows it down in the least, and a couple seconds later, it slides right off the driveway, and stops when the right tires hit the level ground of the lawn.
I jump out of the cab and look back down the length of the truck and see that even though the truck is on the ground, the left wheels of the trailer are about a foot off the ground.
I yell to the loader to go call a tow, and start looking to see if there'* any way to move the truck. I see pretty quickly that it isn't going anywhere, and start running up to the house where he went to get his phone. I also haul out my phone and call my boss to let him know what'* going on, so he can try getting hold of a tow company that won't rape us.
(I was also running up there to get out of the cold, because my winter coat had been sweated through, and I was only wearing a hoodie I put on before starting off).
Anyway, as I'm walking into the house, I hear him on the phone, and what I hear is, "Oh damn, nevermind, it just rolled, it just rolled all the way over."

I run through his house to his front window, and this is what I see in the yard:
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Anyway, we ended up waiting about half an hour for two wreckers to show up.
We had to cut all the straps on the load and leave it in his lawn, along with my tarps(they were trapped underneath the right side of the load of hay.)
They ended up righting the truck and pulling it sideways up the side of the drive until it would stay put, then moved the front wrecker forward and dragged it towards the road.

Anyway, it was still drivable once they had locked the trailer brakes open, so we took it to the local Mack/Volvo dealer.

The damage is pretty bad. Because the truck was PULLED over by the trailer, they both have a considerable twist to them. In fact, the trailer is still there. The twist on it is so bad, they weren't sure whether the fifth wheel would lock right, so the company is going to put it on top of another flatbed and trailer it back.
The truck also has a nasty twist in the chassis, but it was still drivable. It has some other damage too. The way it pulled over, the cab came to rest on a mound of snow. Because of that, the chassis twisted over more that the cab could, pushing the left side of the chassis into the floor of the cabin. The air-bags that cushion the cab drove their way up into the floorboards, doming up the bottom of the side-storage and pushing out the rear bulkhead. On the other side, it pulled the airbag apart, rupturing it, and bending one of the shocks. It also pushed the left side lower fairings up into the side of the body, breaking them along the top and popping off trim panels. The right side fairings are all cracked, and the steps under he door are bent. The twist also broke the left side of the headache rack(the heavy rack where the chains and such are hung on the back of the cab).

The dealer fixed the busted airline, not that it mattered, what with leaving the trailer behind. They also used a ratchet-strap to tie down the headache rack. Other than that, there wasn't much that could be done there. I drove it back on Friday.
I don't know just how fixable the chassis is, but theres no buckling anywhere, and no cracks. The cab and fairings are repairable.
This all started on Thursday.
I won't know whether I still have a job until Monday.

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Damage to fairing brackets.
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Elctrical connector was shoved up into the air lines, severing them.
Also, you can see the bend in the body where the cabs air-ride suspension was shoved up into the floorboards, pushing them up and the back bulkhead out...
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BTW, Crash, this is why I wasn't able to get out to the JY and check out that GP yesterday.

That is absolutely terrible! I'm so sorry about your truck, and I'm glad to see you're all right. I wasn't expecting a thread titled like this, or even close to this, from you. You always seem like the cautious type. From what I have read, you were driving very slowly in the snow, and the truck just rolled over?

Well you missed the step where it basically slid sideways off the driveway, and down a small hill, but yes.

I don't know if you could ever have done anything about this. Good luck, but I think you'll keep your job. It seems unlikely that you could have regained control of the situation once the truck started sliding.

Agreed.

Was anyone injured? No.

Was the freight damaged? No. It is hay, afterall.

Did the company send you out to go get it, knowing the weather conditions? Yes.

Did you follow protocol after the incident? Yes.

Was there anything you could have done to prevent it? Unlikely. I saw no guardrails to help guide you out of the drive.

Were you given a citation? No. And it doesn't appear that any personal property damage was done.

This is what insurance is for. Trucking companies know the inherant risks involved, especially in inclement weather. If the damage is too great, insurance will total it and the trailer, trucking company buys another one, Roadway gets the banged up Volvo, which ironically will be one of the nicer ones in the fleet.

No prob on the seats Brian, after all, it is only a $300 car

I am glad to hear that you are ok though. I also think you will still have a job no problem on Monday

Oh man wow

Glad no one was hurt.

Hope all works out for you!

I've seen something very simlar almost happen to a neighboring farmer. First thing they did was release the straps and let the hay fall off. Then drove out.

The most important thing is that nobody got hurt. Hopefully your boss is a understanding person. It'* not like you could have avoided it, or like you did it purposly or something. I'm sure everything will work out just fine.