(PHOTO CREDIT: OSWEGO POLICE) – Those crazy drunks. Enough skill to get a piece of big yellow iron cranked up in the dark and head out on a public road, but not enough sense to know that it’s a really bad idea.
Construction equipment typically uses a common key. To my knowledge, only two keys will start any Caterpillar machine. Bobcat uses only one key. To make matters worse, Bobcat keys will start many Vermeer or Case machines. Since many operators will use the machine, this makes a certain amount of sense. Lowboy drivers who move equipment around will typically have a ring of about 50 keys so someone doesn’t have to get him a key, or leave the key in the machine, unattended.
We don’t know which fail happened here, but an individual who had been royally overserved decided walking was for chumps and lit up a Case excavator. A little reasearch shows the Case CX130 is 9 feet, 6 inches high when the boom is at it’s lowest point. It’s 8 feet, 6 inches wide, and about 28,000 pounds. So not the biggest dirt digger, but too big for the kids to play with in the sandbox. The maximum reach of the boom is 28 feet. The maximum height for trucks in most states is 13’6″, so power lines are likely 15 feet or so above the road. So what we have here is what we call an “Interference Fit”.
Did someone leave the key under the mat? In the key switch? Or was this clown an operator and had his own key? We don’t know, but he got it started. Once running, these aren’t hard to figure out. Two levers are for ground drive, and two joysticks make it dig and swing. I believe we once read the two Lohnes lads with ages in the single digits mastered one of these in short order, although only under the influence of juice boxes. So off this guy goes, knocking down utility lines as he made his merry way down the residential street at midnight. Heading for home, or looking for another tavern? We don’t know, but the police stopped him after about a mile. When ordered out of the machine, he fell from the cab and the police were able to send the detectives back to headquarters, we can close the books on this one.
