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Fxfymn, on a serious note, I saw the "helper" on the back of our local refuse contractors clinging to the handle on the back of the packer at 60mph on a four lane expressway! The thing has a little two ft step for him to stand on! Designed I'm sure for 10mph stops in local neighborhoods! I think the fire trucks have a safer place for them to stand on don't they? If that packers driver hit a bump or made a sudden move the helper would have been " gone" perhaps literally!

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I used to do that in the 70's this was my first trucking job drove as well as work the back I have never seen anybody stand there on the highway seems somebody forgot he was back there....bob

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The garbage truck topic brings up old memories of hanging on the side of a tractor drawn ladder truck going down the road at 60+ and sometimes you would hear it peg on the governor @75 and not think a thing about it. It really scares me now, WHAT WAS I THINKING in my younger days.

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Fxfymn, on a serious note, I saw the "helper" on the back of our local refuse contractors clinging to the handle on the back of the packer at 60mph on a four lane expressway! The thing has a little two ft step for him to stand on! Designed I'm sure for 10mph stops in local neighborhoods! I think the fire trucks have a safer place for them to stand on don't they? If that packers driver hit a bump or made a sudden move the helper would have been " gone" perhaps literally!

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Mower man   and Vapatentman,this company has a lot of turnover, you seldom see the same helper twice! Don't know if they fall off and the driver just leaves them in the ditch!😁,actually you just KNOW the driver handbook prohibits them from riding on the back! (Wink,wink)  possibly the company denies them workmans comp if they fall off! But if the guy had to run up and get in the cab when the stops are a hundred yards apart he'd be worn out at the end of a two hundred stop day! I was thinking the  helper could have a belt with a metal loop on it that Snaps onto a belt hanging from the truck! Or a half round cage on the corner of the truck ( like they have on ladders going up to water towers)!

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Every day we have an opportunity to prove Darwin was right. If they can't hang on then evolution just took place.

Vapatentman is correct. Every one of us was young and stupid. I still shake my head thinking about tearing down the road at 60 plus putting my gear on while a second person wrapped his arm around you to hold you on. In those days all that mattered was that you never let the second due company beat you into your first due area and that you tried like hell to beat them into their's. The maxim is you never make up time you lose in the fire house, so what we would do is throw our coats up into the hose bed, step into our boots before boarding, and then wiggle into the coat going down the road so we could clear the station faster.

Eventually there were enough firefighter fatalities due to falls off of apparatus, combined with a whopper lawsuit won against Pirsch, that the practice of riding out of a seated area was stopped. 

In the county where I worked the trash guys are not allowed to ride the back, but instead literally run down street to keep ahead of the truck. The motivation is they get 8 hours pay even if they finish the route in less time than that. And they always do. I was really surprised that the municipalities in the Charleston, SC area still let them ride the back. 

Money, sex, and fire; everybody thinks everyone else is getting more than they are!

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