My 4WD Club runs training just like other clubs do, and while much of it is statement of the obvious, there are always gems to be picked up from it. An active bloke in 4WD in SA who runs much of the training here made a film with a number of others on the Snatch Strap recovery and the need for something to damp the flying snatchstrap in the event of a failure. They simulated a failure such as a towball or shackle failure, by attaching to the towing vehicle with multiple loops of rope and attached the other end of the strap to a tree protector around a tree to represent the stuck vehicle.
In front of the tree, they placed a wooden pallet such as bricks are delivered on, and in front of that they placed a thick piece of galvanised tin, about 10 guage in the old numbers. They then simulated the recovery with just a recovery bag such as they sell at ARB, TJM etc, filled with the recommended 15kg of dirt in its pockets astride the snatch strap.
The results were frightening, as the shackle on the towing end went through the tin plate, the pallet and took a big chunk out of the tree. The video was shown at one of our club evenings and it had a sobering effect on everybody there. This is the sort of training stuff that needs to be made widely available, as it showed that even with the right connection points etc, a gear failure could still cause damage. You cannot easily legislate against this, except to mark the gear and enforce only the sale of properly rated stuff.
I guess my point is I agree with much of what has been said, but I think that the most beneficial way to avoid the sort of deaths and injuries we have seen is education and training, and publicising what we all know. You cannot regulate stupidity or macho performance as Snicko has noted, but you can at least remove the "i didn't know" factor. There should be safety documentation with every 4WD sold. It won't necessarily stop problems, but if everyone knew that their gear should be rated, that the vehicle should have proper recovery points and that the book in the glovebox showed them where and where not to attach, we might have made some progress.
At the end of the day, there is some of the "Natural Selection" aspect to all of this, but so long as our 4WD Clubs and Forum members, and their kith and kin are schooled by us, and so long as we take care ourselves, I doubt we can do any more. As a group we should try to get the safety message out there the best we can, but we cannot stop every idiot. These we should just stay clear of, and advise anyone we see to do the same. In motor sport, we used to have the same reckless cowboys show up from time to time and if the scrutineers did not pick up their shortcuts and dangerous behaviour, then occasionally one would fall victim to his own behaviour. That's why they say that "Motor Sport is dangerous" on the tickets. But still the crowds come. I just don't stand too close to the fence.
Sorry. sermon over.
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Originally Posted by stets
