Overhead Powerlines

[big fell!]

Thoughts to his family. cant take chances with the Lecky...

[treequip]

Depends somewhat on the voltage too. I've seen tyres melt and catch fire when left for a while. There was good video from the states where a mobile crane hit the over heads. Tyres melted, truck shorted out and burst in to flames. Each situation needs to be weighed on its merits (maybe not the right word to use but you get my drift).

 

Quite agree, if the tyres are on fire it's time to take your chances with the hop skip and jump contest.

 

I did say “unless you absolutely have to leave the vehicle”

[s o c]

very sad and can happen so easily. thoughts with his family.

[skyhuck]

Very sad indeed.

 

Would it not be worth trying to drive the vehicle away form the wires???

[Ruskins Trees]

Thoughts with family of this poor bloke.

 

Just to add to the safety points. The safety advice I have seen is that you are better waiting in the vehicle until the electricity supplier has confirmed the power is switched off. The system could think it has just tripped and reset it, often automatically. Same goes for powerlines on the ground, just because they are off, does not mean they are going to stay off.

[Nat]

A friend witnessed a tipper truck tip its load and contact the 11kv overheads in a yard locally.

He said it was the most astounding thing he's ever seen, sparks, lorry tyres on fire and bursting, cable broke and came down and set fire to all the grass and tarmac.

 

System breaker tripped and reclosed THREE times.

 

Driver stayed in his cab and was ok....

 

My mate is an electrican, and kept people back because he thought the connection might reclose....

 

A week later the electricity company arrived, quietly erected overhead cable signs and left, there had been none previously but the driver should've checked.