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Now what? Having "swallowed" the dumpster along with it's garbage, poor truck #222 appears to be suffering indigestion.[/caption]
This is a dumpster collection truck belonging to Northwest Wast Solutions Inc. The driver is definitely having a Bad Day at Work! These photos were taken early in the afternoon, in the lane on the South side of 10th Avenue, right at the intersection with Fir Street. Just a moment ago, this truck was holding a large dumpster (what Europeans call a skip, I think) on the two forks you can see sticking straight up in the air, atop the truck. Where is the dumpster? It's in the truck! I watched it happen, and still can't believe what I saw.
I was binning in the Fairview lanes when this truck pulled in to the alley between 11th, and 12th Avenue, ahead of me. We were both travelling West-bound. The driver seemed a bit slow about the actual dumpster pick-up, but moved ahead of me quickly. I caught up in the lane South of 10th. I heard the truck screech to a halt ahead of me, and when I got to where I took these photos, I kept a respectful distance -- especially after I saw the several feet-long skid marks left by the back tires when the truck "stopped" to collect the dumpster in question.
I watched the driver skewer the pockets on either side of the dumpster with the truck's two hydraulically-powered fork tines. He lifted the dumpster a bit and dramatically shot the truck forward , at least half a truck length. Stopped, and lifted the dumpster up over the big hole on the top of the truck -- gravity did the rest. Well, the drivers have a trick to help it along -- they quickly raise, and lower the forks a bit to shake the dumpster, and help dislodge compacted garbage. This driver was actually bouncing the dumpster up and down on the forks. Somehow, as the forks got to the horizontal position we can see in the photos, the dumpster bounced high enough to completely clear the fork tines and fell back down, exactly into the hole in the top of the truck. Who knew that could even happen?
A resident in a third floor apartment called to me, asking if I'd seen "that." I said yes, and pointed out the skid marks. The resident thought the driver was a menace, and said he was calling Northwest -- I gave him every encouragement. I felt bad for the drive, but, wow, I thought this could have gone dangerously wrong -- if the dumpster had bounced off the top of the truck, for instance. Wonder how much fun it is to get the dumpster out of the truck. Click on the images to enlarge them.
Now what? Having "swallowed" the dumpster along with it's garbage, poor truck #222 appears to be suffering indigestion.[/caption]
This is a dumpster collection truck belonging to Northwest Wast Solutions Inc. The driver is definitely having a Bad Day at Work! These photos were taken early in the afternoon, in the lane on the South side of 10th Avenue, right at the intersection with Fir Street. Just a moment ago, this truck was holding a large dumpster (what Europeans call a skip, I think) on the two forks you can see sticking straight up in the air, atop the truck. Where is the dumpster? It's in the truck! I watched it happen, and still can't believe what I saw.
I was binning in the Fairview lanes when this truck pulled in to the alley between 11th, and 12th Avenue, ahead of me. We were both travelling West-bound. The driver seemed a bit slow about the actual dumpster pick-up, but moved ahead of me quickly. I caught up in the lane South of 10th. I heard the truck screech to a halt ahead of me, and when I got to where I took these photos, I kept a respectful distance -- especially after I saw the several feet-long skid marks left by the back tires when the truck "stopped" to collect the dumpster in question.
I watched the driver skewer the pockets on either side of the dumpster with the truck's two hydraulically-powered fork tines. He lifted the dumpster a bit and dramatically shot the truck forward , at least half a truck length. Stopped, and lifted the dumpster up over the big hole on the top of the truck -- gravity did the rest. Well, the drivers have a trick to help it along -- they quickly raise, and lower the forks a bit to shake the dumpster, and help dislodge compacted garbage. This driver was actually bouncing the dumpster up and down on the forks. Somehow, as the forks got to the horizontal position we can see in the photos, the dumpster bounced high enough to completely clear the fork tines and fell back down, exactly into the hole in the top of the truck. Who knew that could even happen?
A resident in a third floor apartment called to me, asking if I'd seen "that." I said yes, and pointed out the skid marks. The resident thought the driver was a menace, and said he was calling Northwest -- I gave him every encouragement. I felt bad for the drive, but, wow, I thought this could have gone dangerously wrong -- if the dumpster had bounced off the top of the truck, for instance. Wonder how much fun it is to get the dumpster out of the truck. Click on the images to enlarge them.
July 29th update: I emailed Northwest, but received no reply -- busy people. I have also since spoken to several drivers of dumpster collection trucks; all have admitted to doing it: They'd all dropped the dumpster container into the truck, or had it bounce off the truck -- "it happens all the time," more than one driver, or person connected with a garbage collection company, told me, and given the hundreds of dumpster pick-ups, day-in, day-out, I shouldn't doubt it. Driver's indicated it wasn't that big a deal; the dumpster was easily extracted, but it wrecked their schedule for the day's pick-ups.
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