LOADING YOUR VEHICLE (Safe Drive Training)

	When loading your car it is essential to not inadvertently make objects lethal weapons in your car. In a collision small objects become big missiles, making impacts of 20-30 times their weight. 20 kg of load can impact the skull at an equivalent of ½ tonne. This means even the smallest objects can pack a big punch.

Firstly never store objects in the drivers footwell. Not the steering lock, nor your shoes. Under heavy braking or cornering these items can move and reduce your ability to use the pedals.

Even the floor mats if not properly designed can squash forwards as you get in the car, limiting or blocking your access to the pedals.

Loose objects on the dashboard or centre console such as CD cases, loose change and mobile phones can be distracting as they slide around while cornering.

Use the drink holders so you do not need to nurse a drink between your legs while driving. In some cars the drink holders are even conveniently located in front of the air-conditioning controls to keep cold drinks cold and hot drinks hot.

Avoid the temptation created by leaving your handbag or briefcase on the front passengers seat. Store it safely so you have to stop the car to get at objects inside.

Be aware of what lurks under the drivers seat. An empty bottle, tennis ball, referdex or other object can also moved from under the seat to under your feet. The Street Directory belongs in the map pocket.

Never leave large objects unrestrained on the backseat. Often at the drive-thru bottle shop the attendant will place a carton of beer on your backseats.

In a small crash this heavy mass could kill front seat occupants. Death by beer, what a way to go.

If your car has a remote boot release, use it to allow the attendant at the bottleshop access to the boot.

Many hatchbacks have an area referred to as the parcel shelf. But we should never store objects here either. Not small dogs, nor cats, nor tissue boxes, nor umbrella’s nor hard hats.

As a civil engineer I have seen many colleagues demonstrating their ignorance to the dangers of loose objects, by storing the hard hat here. A hard hat will hurt. Tragically there have been occurrences of Australian drivers killed by their golf umbrella as it stabbed them through the seat from behind.

In another tragic case, a young lady was murdered in a small fender bender leaving her local shopping centre by her groceries placed in the backseat and not the boot.

When storing items in the boot, also give some consideration to how they are placed.

So pack items carefully. Place the largest heaviest items down low and up against the backseats.

Large items should be placed to make sure the maximum surface area contacts the backseats. Having this luggage the other way concentrates forces in a crash.

A product that exists to provide extra protection for occupants from their luggage is a Cargo Barrier. Milford Cargo Barriers are manufactured in Adelaide by Milford Industries and can be fitted as an after-market accessory to almost all commercial vans or wagons. The idea being to provide a reinforced cage to separate load from occupants.

Under the Workplace Health and Safety Act the vehicle is becoming recognized as a workplace and as such employers have obligations to protect employees on the job site. This may include the fitment of cargo barriers to the company vehicle fleet.

So in the interest of your safety and that of your passengers load your car correctly, if regularly carrying heavy loads consider the purchase of a Cargo Barrier and store loose objects in the storage compartments provided.

When I was 17 and didn’t know any better I dared a mate of mine to drive his Volkswagen Kombi Van around this 90 degree bend as fast as he could.

About mid-corner both of us suddenly appreciated the danger we were in; when the high-centre of gravity, skinny tyres and loose road surface conspired against us and the Kombi pivoted, tipped and then rolled 3 times over landing back on its wheels.

Now we were really lucky, firstly because we were wearing our seatbelts which kept us inside the vehicle and secondly because we did not hit anything solid.

But in the crash all the loose objects which included an axe, a circular saw, a socket set, a pair of football boots, a golf club, assorted rubbish, a pair of dirty underwear which still disgusts me today and several burgers we had just picked up from a take-away store migrated to the roof, then the floor, then the roof, then the floor then the roof then the floor in the washing machine roll over process.