Homeless in Vancouver: Wouldn’t dig driving ahead of this in rush hour

Perhaps I’m just a nervous Nellie but this afternoon I was glad to make it down West Broadway and back into the Fairview neighbourhood ahead of the Case 580 Super M loader/backhoe that I saw in the westbound lane of rush hour traffic at 4 p.m.

What gave me pause was the thing that the lumbering loader was hauling. Half in (and half out) of the front claw bucket was a double drum walk-behind roller— the sort of diesel-powered machine that you see being used to compact soil and asphalt and which can apparently weigh between 700- to 800-some kilograms.

According to Wikipedia, that equals or exceeds the 730-kilogram curb weight of a first-generation Smart Fortwo!

And it was plain impossible for me not to imagine the loader stopping abruptly in traffic and unceremoniously tipping its weighty load onto the back of some poor commuter’s car—or bicycle trailer.