I've often said that I find these big exhaust pipes on machines a blind spot. It's not bad if you have a camera, but if not I find it a bugger. We had a big storm yesterday, and one of the boys that plow one of the malls had to leave because he was having trouble with his blood sugar. They called me in to take his spot. Rather than grab the grader, I just took his 150 Volvo. About half an hour in, I checked the mirror saw nothing, just the exhaust pipe, backed up and bang. Checked the mirror again, just exhaust so right away I thought car! Glanced over my shoulder just in time to see the 60 foot light standard fall to the ground. Nuts!!! Glad there were no cars where it fell.
Indeed. If you're in the business, sooner or later something's going to happen. Sorry it happened to you, glad nobody was injured, except your pride, eh? :Banghead
I've done that, with a skinny exhaust pipe! Those light standards are hard to see when the light on them is out... and they move around when you are backing-up and turning near them. They step aside when you plow past them, and then they move closer to the blade, when you backup. What I hate more are cars, the ones without brains. The other day, I pushed on a snow ramp, backed up to get more, and looked forward to see a car parked right on the ramp, where is was a few seconds prior. The dork in the car gave me a FU shrug, so I pushed the snow that I had right up is tailpipe, and went on to other places.
Ouch at least it fell away from you.... I backed over a surveyor's instrument once doing that. Lucky I knew it was back there some where and stopped before crushing it. I just folded up the legs it went over easy and was ok.
When I was in college living in the dorm, I watched the Facilities Management loader plow the commuter lot across the street one night. Not a car in the lot, just a single pole light right smack in the center. You know what I'm going to tell you . I was enjoying watching him making his methodical passes (I like watching this kind of stuff . He was backing up towards the light pole and the closer he got the more apparent it was he was going to hit it. I told my roommate watch this. Sure enough, he hit it and stopped in about 2 feet. Down went the light. the mercury vapor light stayed lit until it hit the pavement. This was in the days before not only cell phones but it was unusual to have a 2-way radio in a loader. Off he drove to tell the boss about the oops. I went to bed. Next morning, just a orange cone marked the spot
I think that camera creates a blind spot too. I guess the reason those pipes are so big is they are a pipe inside a pipe. The exhaust helps draw warm air from under the bonnet. It should come over to the corner of the cab like most tractors. The Deere's are about the same. Chaulk it up to experience I guess. When I'm relaxed, I'm as good as anybody at what I do. When I'm overanxious, I'm like Flubber in a china shop. I've never got a mailbox snow plowing, but 10 years ago I went past a couple bee hives with the window open because the air conditioning wasn't working and the cab filled up with bees. The hives were a couple grader lengths from the intersection where there were a couple mailboxes. A couple bees went down my collar and I let out the clutch inadvertently without getting that old 730 in reverse first nailing the mailboxes. So I spent my day off crowbarring out the old pieces of post and pulling the mailboxes off the old posts and attaching to the new ones.