News: Death while loading

[mediajackl]

From our friends at Eyewitness News 12 in Providence, Mass. No link since this is extent o the report:

"AUBURN, Mass. An Auburn man was killed when a motorcycle he was loading onto the back of his pickup truck fell on top of him. Police said 54-year-old Stephen Gleason was alone when the Harley-Davidson motorcycle fell off a plank he was using to push the bike up and onto the truck bed. Police said the motorcycle weighed about 700 pounds."



(comment) Not to overload on the accident stuff, but this is different.
Goes to show, we who own motorcycles are dealing with heavy machinery here, and bad stuff can happen in many ways. Never assume you can be too cautious, even if the bike is turned off.

[Zixxer10]

Clutching a 450, or so, pound sport bike up into a pickup truck bed is a tall enough order for one person, especially as it gets up close to the height of the bed. Trying it with another almost 300 pounds is really looking for trouble. "Pushing" the bike up the plank, as the story says, would be an absolute impossibility even if the plank was thirty feet long. It looks like another case of the high cost of stupidity.

[MadMaxmlin]

Using a trailer is much safer with the appropriate cautions and tie-downs. Using a truck bed can be safe but I'd use a good wide platform, not a plank, and I'd get help.

FYI U-haul trailers are very reasonable. I only paid like $23 for an overnight U-haul trailer rental for picking up my Z-750 recently.

[Wolfie]

Many years ago I and several others in a bar were offered 'free beer' to load this guys HD into a pickup. Straight up, no ramp. It had quit running, not a rip off.
Talk about stupid things to do for free beer.
I think my back still hurts.
Lucky he didn't want it unloaded too..

mark.

[El Guapo]

A buddy of mine and I tried to deadlift a Honda CB250 into a truckbed when we didn't have a ramp. Yeah, we tried. After that we just lifted the front onto the bed, rolled as far as we could, then lifted the back. Probably scraped the underside of the exhaust, but we were more worried about damaging the truckbed than the bike. Trailers are much, much easier to work with. Sad, sad story about the H-D guy.

[MotoMan]

Yeah, seriously, not a good way to go. I dropped my old Ninja 500 trying to load her once onto a U-Haul moving truck. It had one of those long ramps. I got her to the top, but then the underside got caught at the point where the ramp meets the bed. I tried to push her, but lost balance and control and down she went. No bueno! I can't imagine what it would have felt like to have her land on me. Ouch!

I'd say one of those wide ramps that you could ride her up would be a good option when you're going it alone. Otherwise, I don't think I'd ever load a bike by myself. It's too easy for something minor to go wrong, but in such a cause even a minor trip and cause a lot of damage to both the bike and yourself.

Poor guy.

[Smitty]

I still have a trailer with three rails & so often loaded one or several dirt comp bikes with a short tail acting as a bit of a ramp. Man this was so much better then my days or removing the front wheel to get the dirt comp bike into my CJ-5 jeep or the 1200cc VW van that house the complete bike. Prior to that made up a trailer that could house three bike & we could stuff another two into the old '36 Chev panal van. Used the latter often to pick up customer's bikes.

Problem is with my sportbikes is way to much that can be cought & damaged when loading or unloading PLUS the rails would have to be wide & a much longer ramp to use the present & old dirt comp trailer, plus new tyres/wheels, new lights, new wires & so much more.

Also know that three yrs ago, in this area, a chap in late 40s was unloading his ATV only it ended up on top of him & being alone, during hunting season, he died a slow death.