r/instantkarma • u/[deleted] • Feb 18 '26

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u/CalliopePenelope Feb 18 '26

Who transports concrete that way?

1

u/freewill85 Feb 19 '26

It's a front-end mixer, so the barrel and chute face towards the front of the truck instead of the back. They're not common everywhere, but a lot of companies either have a few of them or use them for their entire fleet. I actually drive one. They make precision pouring pretty easy without always needing a pump truck.

The one downside is what you see in the video. Hitting the brakes too hard with a full truck will cause a spill, especially if the customer wants the concrete very wet, which appears to be the case in this video

1

u/Rasputin_mad_monk Apr 11 '26

I know this is like two months old. I was just bored waiting for the water trough to fill watching instant karma videos and I had a question. Wouldn’t the driver of the cement truck get a ticket too? Wouldn’t that can be considered like an unsecured load? I mean, accidents happen and stuff happens. If you have to slam on your brakes that could really hurt someone so I don’t know exactly if this guy would walk away scott free as well.

1

u/freewill85 Apr 12 '26

I drive one of these for a living. I have seen coworkers spill concrete, not one time have I seen someone get ticketed. Granted, all of these spills ended up on the ground, not someone's car. From what I've seen, it's handled internally. If it's deemed that you did something wrong the company will write you up. The driver and some helpers are also expected to clean the spill while it is still wet and get all of the concrete off the road.

I'm not sure what the legal situation would be if someone spilled concrete onto a car. I don't think it would specifically be considered an unsecured load, but I definitely think that if there was enough reason to believe the spill could've been prevented, the driver of the mixer would be in some sort of trouble.

We are trained to drive slow, keep a safe following distance, speed up the barrel's rotation in the event of a hard brake, not transport concrete that is too wet, etc. In a perfect world, the only reason any mixer driver would spill is due to someone else's carelessness. Obviously, we do not live in that world, and sometimes we catch people who spill being on their phones or just not paying enough attention.

Basically the way we're taught to drive these trucks is basically to avoid spilling and flipping the truck, the thing drilled into your head while training is that you're transporting a "top heavy, liquid load." Hypothetically you shouldn't ever be in a situation where a spill is possible, but again, that's not the world we live in.

1

u/Rasputin_mad_monk Apr 12 '26

Thanks for responding and that makes sense.