Safety gear for trips

[mudgrip4]

Hello all - am thinking about doing a Canterbury trip (Glenthorne station near lake Coleridge) for those who can come. Nice trip - very scenic. Full day.

Question arises however which I'd like to put up for discussion - safety equipment on our vehicles. Am a member of another Canterbury club, and as with almost all clubs, some basic gear is required for safe recovery of our own and others' vehicles. This would include proper tow hooks, mounted with 12ml 8.8 standard hi tensile steel bolts directly onto chassis front and rear, and a very strong tow rope or 9 to 18 meter towing strop rated at around 8 tonnes. These are the very basics needed for safe recovery from rivers, sand, sticky mud etc - especially where snatch towing is needed.

Towballs are an absolute liability - rated to carry less than 2 tonnes, and the force to snatch a vehicle out of thick mud etc will be several times that. They do break off and hit the other vehicle like a bullet. A man in Invercargill was killed not long ago when a ball and strop came through the back of his 4wd and took off part of his head - the worst part was that it took him 3 days to die. Again snig chains or road tow ropes can be useless and at times extremely dangerous. I saw a 4wd wandering around Christchurch recently with a massive buckle imprint on the back, of a snig chain which had obviously come off the other vehicle.

As we move on to some trips, inexperienced people will come now, and some with gear which is fine for the road but quite unsafe once they are bogged. Perhaps Andrew and others, this is timely to chat about some basic recommended safety equipment. I can suggest two possible steps.

First - vehicles to be fitted with rated towhooks as above and to carry a rated towrope or strop (strap). Hooks are cheap - $5-20 dollars each and a 9 meter strap is about $60 if you hunt around. This provides basic safety for any 4wd offroad. Many of you will have these.

Second level of stuff - also required for other clubs' trips are fire extinguisher, first aid kit. rated shackle, spade.

Quite interested to take a trip soon, but have chatted about safety with another experienced clubbie and Club Isuzu member Dave M (hi Dave) and both feel to raise the safety question for discussion now for all to comment on. A little bit wary about leading inexperienced drivers with unequipped vehicles on bigger trips. What do we all think - regards - Mike A.

[geeves]

yes fair and valid comment. On trips I have run I have requested similar requirments if there is any liklyhood that it will be needed. ie if its little more than a road trip then lesser requirements but any proper 4wding then a snatch strap proper hook extigisher and shovel as min req. Also if theres likly to be mud then mud tyres.
We probably need to introduce a grading for trips similar to other clubs which require proper gear as standard but also an easier grade for those members that realy only want road trips and wont require the extra gear.
Anouther area that needs to be looked at is club insurance although this will incur a cost to members

[Andrew]

Good point and thanks for bringing it up.

Yes, you are correct in that we need to educate the "newer" drivers to the need for safety equipment.

Alan has a good point as well, we will need to start grading events with complosary equipment needed for each grade of trip.

If anyone has some good guide lines for a) Grading Scale and b) what gear for what scale please email me and let me know.

I will also look at putting together some "Safety Packs" at a good price for people as well. ie: Tow Strapes, Fire Extinugsher etc etc....

If I can do this at a good price then there is no reason for people not to carry the gear.

Comments please.....

[James W]

I'm of two minds when it comes to safety rules.
I think I'm quite safety concious but I really loath with a vengence "club rules" reguarding safety. This has turned me off several clubs with a "I know best" attitude that can't be contested.

I believe it's about working within the safe limit of whatever gear you have, reguardless of how little or much gear you have. I'm not contesting the level of gear suggested, I pretty much agree, but it's not a magic formula. Thus my main point is you can still be an idiot with all the best gear in the world.
For example I'm a rail crane driver and I have seen club standard pratices winching that frankly make me squirm.

So forgive me if I'm a little anti hard and fast rules.
This is what makes this group good, the good bits... not the BS. Of course this being currently an informal group any trip is not compulsory and at any time if you arn't comfortable don't do it. This is important at any time.
As an organsier of ocassional trips I won't do anything I'm not comfortable with, and in many cases I may be more cautious than most, but often I adapt to the limits of my gear, conditions and my and other vehicles.

All of this breaks down a little with new inexperinced members though. The best system I believe is a mentor type role and again keeping within everybodys and equipment limits.

Track gradings I suggest this is a good system:
www.angelfire.com/ne/4WDNZ/gradings.html

[geeves]

Thats almost word for word the gradeing system I was meaning ( I think the one I saw belonged to a different club)
At the end of the day the trip leader would have a fair idea of the terain likly to be encountered and is the one with his or her neck on the line if somthing goes wrong. Untill there is a formal safty policy and to an extent even after that the leader has the right to not take anyone who they belive doesnt have the experiance or geat to complete the trip safly. A trip I ran a year ago into Odlins road is a good example of this On the trip notice I stated that to go to the summit required no special gear but noone would be allowed to go further without hooks strops and a minimum of AT tyres.The only thing out of this list that was req on the day was the tyres.

[mudgrip4]

Sounds like some good stuff here. The track grading system is pretty standard for NZ clubs as far as I know and gives a helpful guideline for driver and vehicle equipment needs for each planned trip. Great idea and helps protect the trip leader, rookie - and other drivers as well. A stuck vehicle immediately involves others.

The idea of mentoring new 4wders is also used alot and works very well. Suggest still very real need for safety equipment - perhaps starting with hooks and rated rope/strop - increasing at trip leader's discretion as track demands increase e.g. grades3-5?

Wouldn't worry too much James about loss of informality . In my experience safety gear and standards has no down sides at all - gives a bit of peace of mind if you are leading a trip in anything over grade2. Otherwise you've got potential for real problems. We have this safety setup in the other club I belong to and it would be hard to get a more informal bunch - but we all know the other drivers have got growing experience and gear we can rely on. No politics or overorganisation problems here at all. Not regarding safety.

I think you are right Alan about insurance, and OSH requirements also crop up at some point for clubs - which is why they focus on the safety aspect alot.

Andrew, you could possibly do a poll to canvas more ideas here?

And maybe we could (all interested) log into the chat room tonight at about 9pm NZ? Will log in then if anyone wants to share an idea. Regards Mike A.

[Witchdoctor]

I have always maintained the attitude when you are out 4wdriving, carry the gear (rated if required) YOU will need to extract your truck. If on your own a winch & associated gear, when in a group, the minium reqirements are a correct tow point front & rear, 1 snatch strap, 2 rated shackels and in the mud add a shovel & mud tyres.

Saying that, if i am out on a track & come upon a 4wd needing extraction and that person is foolhardy enough to venture offroad without the correct gear help is very rarely given unless a dangerous situation exists. Too many times in the past i have helped irresponsible 4wdrivers without so much as a thanks.
To a point, i agree with James W about clubs with excessive rules.
Safty is some thing you should not mess with especially when other peoples lives are at risk. When joining a group to go offroad have the gear or get a car.
This may sound hardline but after spending a weekend at a 4wdrive park, i witnessed 4 trucks that had rolled over on the access roads, through complete lack of respect of safety for themselves & others.
See you on the track's shiny side up.

Dave

[Dave M]

Good on you Mike for wanting to plan a day trip. The problem isn't so much with all having lots of gear, as long as some have and know how to use it; more, all trucks must be capable of being recovered safely. Decent hooks front and rear with high grade 12mm bolts are an absolute minimum. Unfortunately, Isuzus have 10mm bolts holding their hooks on as standard, and are not up to being snatched. Things can turn to crap even on easy trips sometimes and people aren't always aware of their trucks capability or their own limits. So it would end up a very mixed bag if it were a grade 3 trip, or higher. Somebody may have to say who can go and who can't, and that would cause problems. Clubs have rules for safety, and in the 70 odd trips I have done in the second biggest club in the country, there have been no incidents involving injury.

[James W]

I want to reiterate that I'm not suggesting any compromise in safety, in fact I often prefer more. I'm just hesitant about some some hard and fast rules, which sometimes arn't up to my standard, but yet arn't negeoitable, cos thats the rules.

Some good points raised here. Like all should have good hooks, agreed, but I think not all necessarly need have a full kit. This would vary with the track grading/conditions One newby with no strop amoung 5 others fully equiped can be manged safely. But often each others gear will often complement the groups gear. Like additionaly above anything mentioned here I usually carry, a chainsaw, comealong winch and ground anchor, snig chains and a full kit of tools. All of which have got me and others out of some sticky situations.

I'll get off my soap box now.

[Andrew]

There was a meeting held in the Chat Room on Thursday to dicsuss this topic futher as it is something we need to look at.

Some guide lines and ideas will be published shortly for members to comment on.

We dont want to make it tough for people to go on trips however we dont want to put anyone at risk either. I am sure everyone will like whats about to be put up for discussion.

[Dave]

It seems that the standard hook set up on Bighorns is not up to scratch (because they use 10mm bolts).
How do I remove the old factory nuts from inside the chassis so I can mount 12mm bolts to my hooks?
Is there a required method for attaching hooks, or just a minimum bolt rating?

[geeves]

Its a pity they made such strong hooks then mounted them so poorly You cant drill the holes in the hook to take 12mm bolts and the spacing is different on the aftermarket hooks so removeing the old captive nuts wont help.
This is probably as good a way to attach a new hook as any and as long as the chassis walls are at least 4mm thick will satisfy virtualy all clubs in NZ
4wheeldrive.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fperformanceunlimited.com%2Fdocuments%2Ftpwhookguide.html
If you have a towbar on the rear and its attached by at least 2 12mm grade 8.8 bolts on each side then you can mount a hook on there fairly easily.
Anouther way you could look at is the same way mine was done by a local mechanic who cut a hole in the chassis dropped a 6mm thick plate in and bolted the hook through this It has stood the test of time and had one strop broken on it.
The original hook when removed was found to have bent the 10mm bolts so its definatly not up to the job