During covid shutdown a massive piece of industrial machinery was transported down our rural highway. It had like 10 lead and chase cars and a dozen state police. The actual item had 4 semis with 2 pushing and 2 pulling.
I still have no idea what it was, but it added some excitement to a very mundane April that year. I have to imagine it was a very opportunistic move, since most traffic was stopped for covid already.
If it wasn't obviously a wind turbine blade (or a rocket!), maybe it was a petroleum distillation column? Those are a common extra-oversized highway load.
So, the chains broke when doing an emergency braking and the load crushed the pick-up? I clearly see that the driver was at fault, but aren't loads also not supposed to easily escape their tie-downs?
Some loads like this one are so heavy that you just can't defeat their inertia, hence why you go slowly and have a large escort. It couldn't be stopped that quickly just due to the nature of the load.
At some point if you're getting behind the wheel of a vehicle on the road, you have some responsibility yourself. If you're not looking where you're going at all and drive into the path of a heavily-escorted million-plus-pound load and it ends up crushing you because of the sheer physics of the situation, that's on you. There's a hundred other more likely ways to kill yourself on the road if you're not looking where you're going, that don't involve such unusual cargo.
And also, from looking at the photos of the scene, it looks like the driver may have turned quickly to attempt to avoid the crash, and the load continued on of its own inertia and overturned the entire rig, which is an issue caused by top-heavy torque that doesn't care how tightly the load is tied down at all.
Careful with that website. I am trying to access it from EU.
"We recognize you are attempting to access this website from a country belonging to the European Economic Area (EEA) including the EU which enforces the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and therefore access cannot be granted at this time. For any issues, contact webadmin@tdtnews.com or call 254-778-4444."
GDPR is just a pain in the ass to implement properly, for some US websites it's just much easier to ban people from the EU from accessing it then risk the potentially massive fines
You also have to have a European GDPR representative, plus legal review to make sure you’re in compliance. It’s not hard, and not necessarily a large cost, but I can see it being judged “not worth it” for a small concern.
Exactly this. I've seen many EU folk assume if a site doesn't bother with GDPR it must be malicious. When really it's just easier to avoid the EU since they decided they think their laws can apply worldwide.
> What happens btw if an American company just ignores GDPR but still welcomes European visitors? Why would they care about EU law?
EU claims EU law applies to US sites if a EU citizen visits it. This has yet to be tested in court though. I'm incredibly skeptical that it can be enforced.
There's not really too much need for caution; they are just saying the GDPR doesn't apply to them and they would rather not deal with any issues. I do the same thing with many sites I manage, it's significantly less potential hassle.
This happens semi-regularly with links posted on HN. I always read it only as US websites who don't give a crap about the only domain where the EU is leading: countless regulation.
They just don't want to bother with the PITA that the GDPR is and just give that failing continent that my EU is the middle finger.
not sure about the distillation column but wind turbine blades and rockets are relatively light and don't need multiple vehicles pushing and pulling to move them.
I still have no idea what it was, but it added some excitement to a very mundane April that year. I have to imagine it was a very opportunistic move, since most traffic was stopped for covid already.