...The semi was headed west when its raised bed slammed into the overhead sign near mile marker 200 as it approached the I-64/I-295 split.
Virginia State Police said the crash happened shortly after 9:30 a.m.
"The cab continued on and then stopped, obviously, because it had separated from the bed of the tractor-trailer," Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for Virginia State Police, said. "We're still investigating as to what led up to it actually hitting the sign. It was empty at the time."
Troopers do not know why the bed was raised or how long it was up before the crash. But officials said the truck had stopped at a weigh station about a mile earlier, which is equipped with cameras...
It's there a reason why these trucks don't have a safety that keeps you from shifting out of neutral when the bed is raised?
Or at least angrily beeps at the driver?
You need to be able to move while dumping stuff. A beeping noise during normal operations would be so annoying, people would just figure out how to disable it.
An alarm above a certain speed would make sense, though.
It would actually be easier to have a float in the wet kit hydraulic tank on the truck side that alarms when the hydraulic fluid is low.
You need to pull forward as you dump, but it wouldn't be hard to put in a really annoying beeper if you use anything except the first couple gears.