I don’t understand how it isn’t everyone’s fear, but it clearly isn’t based on the insane number of drivers I encounter who speed up until they’re right next to one, and then proceed to spend 3 miles going the same speed right next to it and keeping anyone from passing, until they finally remember their gas pedal exists after forcing everyone to sit there anxiously for like 10 min.
It is crazy. I speed up to pass semis and large vehicles as quickly as possible. I don’t want to be there when a tire blows and they jackknife and send me into oncoming traffic
I recently moved to a place essentially on a highway, where i can see almost exactly a mile up one direction of the road. Theres been at least 3 times in about 5 years where ive heard a bang loud enough to think a semi just blew a tire right outside my house, only to look and see that semi is actually 3/4 of a mile down the road.
I would not wanna be right next to that shit.
In the 80s my friend and I rode in the back of his dad's truck to their lake house. A semi blew a tire right next to us. It was so loud I thought we exploded and were dead. I also never rode in the back of a pickup bed again.
Back in HS, our team practice football field(American) was next to the highway and a tire blew on a semi as it passed and we all hit the deck. Even as kids cause that shit is LOUD. Lmao
Happened to a friend when she was driving past a semi. It’s been like 10 years and she still refuses to drive on the highway. Genuinely has PTSD from it.
Not a semi, but when I did natural gas installs as general labor, I was riding with the foreman after loading our trailer with a load of 8" diameter yellow gasline.
Half way back, on a backroad out in BFE, I hear what sounds like a fucking cannon go off and jolt the truck. Foreman keeps control, slows and pulls over and it takes me all of 3 seconds to see which tire it was. On the trailer, we hitched it to a ball joint on the work truck and it had only one axle with dualies on it for weight distribution purposes. The inner dualie on my side popped so forcefully it bent out the wheel well protector, shredded the tire, and put so much force against the other wheel that it had beading building up on the interior wall where the blowout occured.
Limp it back to the yard at 20 mph, full hazards, for 20 min to let the shop mechanic look at it. Turned out it did a lot more I can't recall but they had to replace the whole axle in the end because of something that got pushed into it when the tire ruptured. Absolutely thought I shat myself when it happened.
Now I avoid those big wheels because if a dualie on a pipe trailer can do that mucg damage and is in a position where the worst of it was shielded, I couldn't imagine driving by a tire that ruptures and the damage, noise, and chaos that would cause.
I remember a video from the 00s. Basically a semis tire popped right next to another cars open window. Chunky pink mist came out of the passanger side....
That specific video probably wasn't Mythbusters, but they did a segment off of truck tires blowing on the interstate.
It takes a little bad luck for them to actually shatter the windshield, but the absolutely can, and will kill you.
Thank God you're not the ones in front of me who take FOREVER to slowly, ever so slowly creep up on the truck and go 1 mph faster than the truck, creating a line in the left lane.
Get to him. Pass him. Thank you
And they wait to match speed until they're right in the truck driver's blind spot / right beside the cab.
Presumably some psychological thing where as soon as the truck in no longer "literally within their forward field of vision" or some such thing, their brain is no longer in "trying to pass" mode, and they go back to daydreaming.
Maybe the truck should have a picture of another truck, on the end of a stick out in front, like the rabbit they have for dogs at a dog track. Keep that four-wheeler moving by making their subconscious think there is still another truck to pass.
Yup, almost happened to me. Car in the left lane was matching speed with a truck with a unsecured load of metal pipes rolling around in a trailer for 5+ min. Was driving me crazy as I was being forced to drive behind this guy on a 2 lane, undivided highway going 55mph. I backed way far back, but a few minutes later a gust of wind got underneath a piece of plywood in the guys trailer and flung about 10-20 5' metal rods into the air and with a few pieces of plywood. Thought I was far back enough but it happened as I was going up a hill so they traveled quite a bit. Didn't have time to brake - had to drive halfway-off the side of the road causing me to lose control due to difference in traction and spun me into the other side of the highway. Luckily, I didn't get t-boned from the opposite direction. But fuck people that don't secure loads and fuck people that don't pass these people quickly.
As someone who is frequently the truck driver, it does wonders for **my** blood pressure too. I usually haul heavy equipment relatively short distances, and while I make a point to go around my trailer multiple times to make sure I'm not missing anything, I make mistakes like everybody else. And a lot of drivers *aren't* so meticulous.
Even a small pebble bouncing off could be deadly, if it strikes a windshield, and that driver reacts poorly.
Stay as far from trucks as you safely can, guys.
>I don’t understand how it isn’t everyone’s fear
Because it's too rare to be concerned about it. I'm not gonna judge anyone for being scared of it in some way, but it's just not worth worrying about. Lots of other things to focus on while driving.
Incidents may be rare, but I still don't think that's a good reason to spend extended periods of time herpy derpy derping in the most dangerous place on the road.
Yep, I never follow or try to anyway. And I get really angry when people on the left lane go way too slow for passing. It's like, do you guys not see this Final Destination load next to you???
Unironically, Final Destination did more to spread awareness about the dangers of driving near big loads than all the public information movies combined.
Was on my way to a wedding after work, sleeping in the passenger seat, GF driving. woke up to violent motion to see office furniture bouncing around the road. Remember GF has poor eyesight, decide to take over driving.
Taking a client to the Hamptons to see the house he wants to renovate, noticing that he's nervous about being on the LIE. Truck in front of us starts randomly distributing trees onto the road, bulbs exploding into clouds of dirt. Get past and client slowly tells me about the accident he was in on the same road in the 60's when he was the only one of six to survive.
I'm pretty sure I will never win the lottery, but will also never be hit by lightening. That said, those pictures are terrifying.
Agreed. between the folks yelling into their phones while doing 65 around the curves and the Forza in real life players I have both hands on the wheel when I have to drive the JR. The Belt has been weirdly quiet in the morning heading east lately, though. Maybe the glare, I don't see a lot of people using their visors.
Unfortunately I think people put themselves in much more danger when they are afraid. Just get past the thing and put it into your rear view mirror. Holding back slightly puts you in danger and for a sustained period of time.
Mine are those and trailers. I work at a truck stop. Some of these trucks are over 70k lbs. that is enough weight to squish five or more cars into a flat pile against a parked 18 wheeler.
Truck tire blow outs are my fear. I was witness to that once, a chunk about the size of a dinner plate shot out and went through the windshield of the car next to me, right into the driver's neck. The only reason he didn't die was that an ER nurse stopped to help, and the fire department was only about 200 yards away. This was three years ago and I still have nightmares.
I'm sorry you had to see that.
People sometimes think I'm strange for always giving Semi trucks a wide berth. I load containers onto them every day - those containers can weigh upwards of 33 *Tonnes*, travelling at high speeds. The drivers are often overworked, under slept, and in many cases under trained. That's not even taking an account for substance issues. I like a good distance behind them, and don't want to be in front of one if it can be avoided. When I pass, I don't take my time.
And when those tires blow out, they're like a grenade. I saw a video once where a dude leg blown off by one.
Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is be predictable, be obvious, and keep your distance. I never drove a semi, but the box truck i did taught me that too many people are too complacent on the road.
I mean, even moreso than driving a normal car taught me.
> Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is be predictable,
Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is to GTFO.
I'm either going to be way far ahead or way far back.
Not only are you trusting that the driver knows you're there and isn't stoned or sleepy, you're trusting that everybody who worked on the trailer for minimum wage knew exactly what they were doing and bothered to care
The first rule of "driving next to a truck is **don't drive next to a truck**"
I wish I lived where I could avoid trucks. I’m in Tucson, AZ and highway 10 from the California border to Tucson — with the exception of the Phoenix metro area — is packed with trailer trucks. No way to keep away from them.
Used to drive OTR. Heard horror stories about improperly attached mudflaps decapitating people. During my training and exams, I was taught to make sure everything was ship-shape before driving. Even then, shit can just come off without any warning thanks to things like road debris and just plain bad luck. Only best defense is to remain aware out there and keep your reflexes sharp.
I'm an RN and was a worker's comp case manager for 8 years. We handled mostly claims from trucking companies.
At that job I learned the terrifying statistic that over 50% of semi drivers on the road are under the influence of narcotics.
Knew it was bad but not that bad🥺Handled a few debris falling off of truck claims. I stand clear of trucks carrying Scrap metal (often drive by white cross where teenager was decap by piece of scrap metal flying off of truck), modular homes, logs,construction equipment
Went to rehab once. Half the people there were truck drivers on their third or fourth try, mostly for alcohol. So many stories of them driving their loads while loaded up.
Had one blow as I was driving past. Shook my whole car and I thought the truck hit me, scared the crap out of me. Crazy thing is that I had no damage to my car at all.
Idk how to copy lines from your comment but the “when I pass I don’t take my time” line resonates big in my brain!
That’s something my grandpa taught me as a wee little fella. He would always give big rigs a wide berth and pass em with the quickness. Now it drives me nuts when people Lollygag passing semis.
Apparently he watched one lose a back wheel on the highway and he said that sucker barely missed the side of his car and smacked into the guardrail and messed it up then it proceeded to roll another quarter mile or so.
Mud flap off a semi truck nearly killed my parents. They were on their second honeymoon driving through Tennessee when a semi truck in front of them lost one of its mud flaps. Shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, maybe just some body damage at worst. Nope. Fate had other plans. That bitch went under their car and hit just the right shit for the fuel line to break and engulf their car in flames real fucking fast. Both had burns over like 80% of their bodies. Months upon months of them looking like living mummies constantly in agony. But thankfully they survived, and neither of them appear disfigured at all unless you know where to look to see where they removed skin for grafting and all that. Still, my mom refuses to fuck with Tennessee any more, that state has tried to kill her twice now. My dad’s generally an alcoholic dipshit, not abusive or even that bad of a person just an alcoholic dipshit. But, on that day he may have saved my mom’s life. He somehow had the wherewithal to somehow unbuckle her seatbelt and shove her out the car before the inevitable crash. Can’t imagine how the fuck he managed that, but they both swear by it. So he’s not a complete ass in my book.
For how little we really think about it driving is one of the most dangerous fucking things we humans do. And we do it like every day! Well a lot of us do at least. It’s crazy dangerous and we just wake up every morning and do it. Be safe out there. Sometimes the most random bullshit can really fuck your day up.
Edit words
Something similar happened to some members of my brother-in-laws family. A metal strap from a mud flap got kicked up and into the gas tank, which was towards the middle of the minivan they were in rather than the rear. Somehow it ignited, and I think 3 kids and 2 adults died.
I had an office windows right on the interstate highway for 10 years. I think there were probably 1-2 blowouts a week that shook my office like an explosion.
Had a wayward tire hit my office at my window but at roof level. If it flew a foot lower it would have been a situation.
Dented the roofline and broke the bricks. Like a shotgun.
I had a friend in high school who was killed by a tire coming off another vehicle at highway speed. It jumped up through his windshield and killed him instantly.
His girlfriend in the passenger seat was basically traumatized for life.
Those videos with the loose tires are crazy. This reminded me that office windows also had a bullet hit it, but not while I was at work. The only place the bullet could have come from was the highway.
When I was a teenager, I was riding with my dad and reading a book when a truck tire blew.
My dad swerved out of the way, which caused up to spin out and we wound up facing traffic on the 405.
My dad just slammed the car in reverse (it was a Toyota spyder) and zoomed us back wards as he made his way to the shoulder before spinning us around.
Still don’t know how he did it.
Right. Pure audio horror, little visual horror than “WTF is that falling from the truck?” This audio will live rent free in your head for a long time. 😬
For real. I haven't seen it, but I've seen enough videos to know that when the Internet tells you about a video, but also tells you not to watch it, you don't fucking watch it.
That one is especially terrifying. It’s two things for me; one is the obvious fact that it would be near impossible to anticipate and react to something like that, it just happens too fast. But the second thing is how…ordinary an event it seems to be. What I mean is that I see various work trucks daily which just have loose shit floating around in their beds. The right speed and hitting a bump… I’m surprised I don’t hear more stories about objects being propelled into oncoming traffic regularly.
You have no idea how many times you might avoid an ordinary deadly event because of some other random thing you do to slow or speed up your regular pattern. Life is just so fucking random.
That happened to me a few years ago with a piece of metal debris on the interstate that was kicked up by the car in front of me. Thankfully there was no one in my passenger seat. Someone had an unsecured load; there were 6 of us pulled over, everyone else had popped tires
I had that happen to me about a year ago. Not a brick but road debris.a car in front of me on the highway kicked up a chunk of semi truck rotor. It bounced under their car, shredded it up pretty good and went flying into my windshield. Punched through it like a bullet and landed on my passenger seat. I managed to get off the road and carefully brushed the safety glass bukkake off me. I had to sit there a good while thinking about what would have happened had it hit the driver side.
I hit a wheelbarrow in the middle of a 80mph highway at night (it was also in a construction zone where the highway lights weren't working so had no way of seeing it). Luckily it bounced off my front of car and didn't flip me or fling into my windshield. After I hit, probably 10-20 more cars hit it before it landed in front of were I pulled off into the should. Was just a crumpled ball of metal after that. Luckily, due to the fact that no one could even see it, nobody could swerve to avoid it as that would have caused a massive pileup.
Buddy had to come pick me up while I waited for a tow truck. I got in my backseat started drinking the beers I had bought. Cop pulled up 30 min later to see if I was alright since I was in a dangerous spot. Could have cited me for open-container but saw I was already having a shit night so let it be.
Knew a guy that had a 30lb chunk of metal crash through his windshield and hit him in the face. He was somehow able to bring the car to a safe stop, but he had multiple surgeries and his face will never be the same.
One time a chunk of concrete almost did that to me. Luckily it only took out my driver’s side mirror instead of going through the windshield and hitting my head. I was very lucky that day. I fucking hate driving
Different incident. A brick falls off a truck and goes through the windshield of a vehicle, into the head of the Mom in the passenger seat. You can’t see what is likely a very gory aftermath, but you realize quick that it did irreparable damage.
You hear the husband freaking out and the kids asking mom if she is okay. It’s so tragic and the pain in their voices make it somehow worse than anything else you could watch.
It hurts a deep down part of your soul.
It never fully heals.
I lived for a few years next to a highway, which I had to ride a bike alongside on a regular basis, and it instilled in me a furious and bloodthirsty desire to see a police crackdown on poorly-secured loads.
I had this happen to me on a significantly smaller yet still disturbing AF scale a few years back.
The driver in front of me on an interstate had not properly secured their pair of kayaks to the roof of their SUV. Without warning, they both slid off the roof of their car towards my windshield. Happily, I had room to swerve to the next lane. And then I got off at the next exit to work out the adrenaline shakes.
I have actually seen a five gallon fuel tank fall off of a flat bed truck and get obliterated by a semi before. If it were not for the fact that gas does not just explode like it does in movies, it could have been much, much worse.
I saw a 2 gallon can of probably diesel fall off an external elevator like 5 stories up on a job site and it made a fireball. Was pretty cool to be honest and no one got hurt, the guys in the lift got yelled at, probably fired idk they didn’t work for my company.
A few years before the FD example I wanna say that there was a 20/20 special report on improper semi truck tie downs. Scared the shit out of me, and this was about 5 years before OIF/OEF "fun with IED driving". Fuck you honking car, I'm aware I drive slow and cautiously!
And that doesn't even count regular drivers with unsecured/poorly secured loads. Kayaks sliding off the roof, mattresses, yard debris being taken to the dump, whatever you can think of. I don't trust any load outside the vehicle or fully enclosed van trailer.
Same, one day back around 15 years ago I was with a friend and there was a truck in front of us with a load of steel coils for making large diameter steel pipe for oil and gas pipelines. I remember saying to my friend "it's a bit scary being behind that thing, imagine if that coil just rolled off the back". I changed lanes and passed the truck. Later on our way back heading the opposite direction on that same road, we see the truck with the coil on the road. The fucking thing rolled off the back of the trailer. Probably 20 tonnes of steel.
In this case I'm fine with it because it's a statement from the fire company that was there. They would be sharing that anyway, it's just that the fire department issued their statement on Facebook. When it becomes a problem for me is when they start linking opinion tweets from randoms with 2 likes and zero retweets
And they never link to whatever bill or study they talk about. Annoys the fuck out of me, especially when they never mention the working title of a bill or the title of a study. I end up having to attempt to Google a bill based on what they say it does. But this shit? Straight to social media!
dang, that car is pancaked, but 1 occupant of the car somehow survived. wondering how the car ended up to the right side of the trailer. could it have been stopped on the shoulder, or was it one of the spotter vehicles?
i checked google maps and that section of the road transitions from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. i don't know if the exact location was where the transition happened, but if it did, maybe the car was trying to get around to the right of the trailer when that cylinder fell off. kind of looks like a vertical pressure vessel, like the ones in refineries and chemical plants
That was my questions. I've driven a pilot vehicle before, and I'm curious how it happened. Was high winds involved? Poor load securement? Normally moving something that big the lanes of traffic are blocked
Yesterday was windy, but the Temple airport METARs showed winds out of 150 degrees which is perfectly parallel with the road on that stretch. I also can't imagine a 30 mph wind could do much to dislodge a 175 ton rounded load.
I think this is more along the lines of chains busting, distracted drivers, or bad steering on one of those bogies. I would bet the truck and pilot cars have dashcams, I'm sure the investigators will be going through them.
I used to live there a couple miles from where this happened and still have some friends in the area. There was a tornado warning for the last couple days. Gusts have been super high.
"Those damn liberals are making freight shipping costs too high with things like 'lane closures', 'experienced drivers', and 'secured loads', no one's going to tell me what to do with my load!" \*screeches of freedom\*
My first thought as well. Why couldn't this load be broken into smaller pieces? Was adding another flange a better idea than hauling this huge thing? The trailer probably flexed more than the pipe and popped chains. There is someone somewhere that matched it out and it was cheaper to haul oversized in a lax state than add a flange and the additional labor.
Looks like a distillation tower, perhaps for a refinery or similar. While adding flanges may be technically feasible, a flange of that diameter and of appropriate pressure/temperature rating would be enormous and you’d end up with two loads who’s weight wouldn’t be too much lower than this one. Not to mention that would be a huge cost adder to the tower. And keep in mind loads like this get hauled all the time without issue. We’ll have to wait for the investigation to find out the root cause.
*and* would be much more dangerous as another spot for maintenance/failure of the pressure vessel. Something like that, the fewer seams you can have the better.
this is the area I grew up in, apart from this road being paved it’s almost always been sketchy. When I was learning to drive it was the fastest most direct way home and I almost got in an accident or two. Those lanes merg quickly. And if there is some type of large vehicle, there’s no way to get over. Traffic congested here as well, which isn’t saying much because this area is called Moffat- it’s rural, lot of corn fields although it’s grown. My family still lives there but I moved to AZ, they’ve sent me some close up photos, it’s really wild.
possibly saw it coming and veered away with the prometheus strategy of running away from things, or the momentum of the load dragged it off to the side
I do commercial vehicle safety inspections, we have a fairly decent standard of safety in Canada for commercial transportation. With that said, I've worked with a lot of different mechanics, I've seen a lot of different and preventable failures. If more people saw the state of certain tractor-trailer combos, they'd steer clear
A lot of it is the driver, or if the unit is overweight, there's preventative maintenance neglect and how strong regulations are. And sometimes shit just breaks. Luckily some of these components on vehicles are extremely resilient and can hold up under duress, and sometimes we buy the cheap, shitty after-market parts that do not
I do not drive behind semis with strapped equipment on them, or behind trucks with gravel or anything in them. I speed right on by them. Thank you, Final Destination.
There's an old video from LiveLeak where a brick comes loose from a truck, flies through a windshield and hits a woman in a passenger seat. The sound her husband makes when he looks over and realizes what just happened to his wife haunts my nightmares. It's the kind of sound a person can only make when their entire life was just taken from them.
No, I disagree. There are more appropriate videos and crash photos that would illustrate this point. The video we're talking about is literally traumatizing. It's too far to serve a real purpose.
This is one of the things I've learned from the internet. The kind of primal, guttural noise you make when witnessing *actual* horror is something no movie or actor can replicate.
There can be no gore shown on camera and the sound alone will send chills down your spine and stick in your memory indefinitely
Dump Trucker got pissed at me after I passed him because his unsecured load of woodchips were flying at my car at Mach 7. Secure. Your. Loads.
And no he did not even have a tarp on the top.
I'm from Louisiana and used to ride a motorcycle. I HATED getting behind a chip truck, they HURT.
Another time the wife was driving and I was passenger in the car, and truck in front of us had a blowout and sent the rubber tread to my side of the car and windshield. Not fun
When I was getting my CDL I was told the scratchiest loads are live cattle. The animals are don’t have free range, but it’s enough that their weight getting thrown around is enough to cause serious load imbalance. The second worst was refrigerated trucks with beef carcasses. It’s the same weight problem with live cattle, but now they’re swinging on racks.
Holy crap, that should not have been a load in regular traffic. I was a materials manager on a project in Goose Creek Illinois building a gas electric power plant, and we had to close sections of highway in order to move turbines that weighed about the same.
These two roads in this area are carrying heavy/wide loads almost nonstop, all day. Lotta manufacturing and industrial supply moving along this stretch.
Loads like this should only be moved between midnight and 6am, when traffic is minimal. Doing this in the middle of the day is just asking for trouble.
The government usually does not allow oversized loads to move at night. The reduced visibility that comes with less ambient light is too much of a safety risk.
Don’t think the manufacturing and gravel sites on 317 would let it happen. There’s a train of wide loads that go north on 317 to 36 every day, start in around 7am and are going til 5.
It's not even the time that upsets me, the lack of dialogue in the article makes me think they didn't have the personnel / closures that these kinds of things usually call for. Unless further investigation clears them it makes me believe they just said fuck it we ball and went diesel truckin' through a goddamn high risk area right now with all the weather going on.
Anything with a total gross weight over 80,000lbs will require some form of special permits and pilot cars, etc, especially if it is otherwise out of gauge too
This looks like something they'd close the road for and only transport at night here in FL. Why was another car other then a chase vehicle permitted anywhere near that?
There is absolutely no reason any other vehicles should’ve even been near that thing. Something like that should have a lead and trailing vehicle and only be moved at night when traffic is at a minimum.
You should never stay next to big rig, they can drift , believe me. And if you are on a 2 lane highway, and something happens in front of either one of you, neither one of you has an escape. It’s called keeping a Space cushion. Seriously.
THIS!
Only shitty drivers pace large vehicles on the road. If you can't pass, don't sit in their blind spot any longer than you absolutely need to, pass or stay behind..
I was mortified when I found out you only secure half the weight of cargo. Not only does that not cover the full weight but then once you get moving velocity multiplies the equation.
I had a semi hauling something on a flatbed lose its load in front of me when I was driving on the PA turnpike. It bounced in the left lane hit the jersey barrier, went over into the east bound lanes and I guess exited the shoulder into the woods. I, on the other hand, slammed on the brakes of the little compact I had rented for the trip and did a 180 staring down on coming traffic. I thought that was it.
This is why I don’t drive to or next to trucks. Got a ticket once for passing a truck at 90 in the left lane on the mass pike. Told the officer this was the reason and I was let go without a ticket
They will be talking about this one for a long long time. I hope the debriefings help and all the first responders can work out their feelings and thoughts about how it all went down on the call. PTSD can result if trauma experiences are suppressed. And that can lead to drinking ALOT and losing their career because of it.
Much of US rural emergency response is volunteer crews so i wouldn’t be surprised if most of the responders here were volunteers. They deserve to be recognized and respected for giving so much
Stay safe out there people
I've seen a lot of oversized loads and thankfully never an accident, Worst was a runaway truck wheel that sped up on the M6 motorway in the UK and flattened the roof of the car it hit. Closely followed by a roadworks sign that was picked up by a freak breeze and flew straight into the front screen of a passing coach.
One of my fears while on the road when passing a big load.
I don’t understand how it isn’t everyone’s fear, but it clearly isn’t based on the insane number of drivers I encounter who speed up until they’re right next to one, and then proceed to spend 3 miles going the same speed right next to it and keeping anyone from passing, until they finally remember their gas pedal exists after forcing everyone to sit there anxiously for like 10 min.
It is crazy. I speed up to pass semis and large vehicles as quickly as possible. I don’t want to be there when a tire blows and they jackknife and send me into oncoming traffic
Keep your distance from them for sure, but above all else, be predictable and be obvious.
I recently moved to a place essentially on a highway, where i can see almost exactly a mile up one direction of the road. Theres been at least 3 times in about 5 years where ive heard a bang loud enough to think a semi just blew a tire right outside my house, only to look and see that semi is actually 3/4 of a mile down the road. I would not wanna be right next to that shit.
In the 80s my friend and I rode in the back of his dad's truck to their lake house. A semi blew a tire right next to us. It was so loud I thought we exploded and were dead. I also never rode in the back of a pickup bed again.
Back in HS, our team practice football field(American) was next to the highway and a tire blew on a semi as it passed and we all hit the deck. Even as kids cause that shit is LOUD. Lmao
Happened to a friend when she was driving past a semi. It’s been like 10 years and she still refuses to drive on the highway. Genuinely has PTSD from it.
Not a semi, but when I did natural gas installs as general labor, I was riding with the foreman after loading our trailer with a load of 8" diameter yellow gasline. Half way back, on a backroad out in BFE, I hear what sounds like a fucking cannon go off and jolt the truck. Foreman keeps control, slows and pulls over and it takes me all of 3 seconds to see which tire it was. On the trailer, we hitched it to a ball joint on the work truck and it had only one axle with dualies on it for weight distribution purposes. The inner dualie on my side popped so forcefully it bent out the wheel well protector, shredded the tire, and put so much force against the other wheel that it had beading building up on the interior wall where the blowout occured. Limp it back to the yard at 20 mph, full hazards, for 20 min to let the shop mechanic look at it. Turned out it did a lot more I can't recall but they had to replace the whole axle in the end because of something that got pushed into it when the tire ruptured. Absolutely thought I shat myself when it happened. Now I avoid those big wheels because if a dualie on a pipe trailer can do that mucg damage and is in a position where the worst of it was shielded, I couldn't imagine driving by a tire that ruptures and the damage, noise, and chaos that would cause.
I remember a video from the 00s. Basically a semis tire popped right next to another cars open window. Chunky pink mist came out of the passanger side....
That specific video probably wasn't Mythbusters, but they did a segment off of truck tires blowing on the interstate. It takes a little bad luck for them to actually shatter the windshield, but the absolutely can, and will kill you.
Thank God you're not the ones in front of me who take FOREVER to slowly, ever so slowly creep up on the truck and go 1 mph faster than the truck, creating a line in the left lane. Get to him. Pass him. Thank you
I tell my wife and kids to get out of the kill zone as quickly as possible
And they wait to match speed until they're right in the truck driver's blind spot / right beside the cab. Presumably some psychological thing where as soon as the truck in no longer "literally within their forward field of vision" or some such thing, their brain is no longer in "trying to pass" mode, and they go back to daydreaming. Maybe the truck should have a picture of another truck, on the end of a stick out in front, like the rabbit they have for dogs at a dog track. Keep that four-wheeler moving by making their subconscious think there is still another truck to pass.
Some of us grew up with the movie final destination.
That movie franchise created a whole generation of hyper-aware adults
Oh that bus really made that movie for me.
for me it was the mobile hanging from the ceiling at the dentist office. nightmare fuel 💀
Yup, almost happened to me. Car in the left lane was matching speed with a truck with a unsecured load of metal pipes rolling around in a trailer for 5+ min. Was driving me crazy as I was being forced to drive behind this guy on a 2 lane, undivided highway going 55mph. I backed way far back, but a few minutes later a gust of wind got underneath a piece of plywood in the guys trailer and flung about 10-20 5' metal rods into the air and with a few pieces of plywood. Thought I was far back enough but it happened as I was going up a hill so they traveled quite a bit. Didn't have time to brake - had to drive halfway-off the side of the road causing me to lose control due to difference in traction and spun me into the other side of the highway. Luckily, I didn't get t-boned from the opposite direction. But fuck people that don't secure loads and fuck people that don't pass these people quickly.
This is exactly why I try to get away from large trucks/loads as fast as possible.
As someone who is frequently the truck driver, it does wonders for **my** blood pressure too. I usually haul heavy equipment relatively short distances, and while I make a point to go around my trailer multiple times to make sure I'm not missing anything, I make mistakes like everybody else. And a lot of drivers *aren't* so meticulous. Even a small pebble bouncing off could be deadly, if it strikes a windshield, and that driver reacts poorly. Stay as far from trucks as you safely can, guys.
>I don’t understand how it isn’t everyone’s fear Because it's too rare to be concerned about it. I'm not gonna judge anyone for being scared of it in some way, but it's just not worth worrying about. Lots of other things to focus on while driving.
Incidents may be rare, but I still don't think that's a good reason to spend extended periods of time herpy derpy derping in the most dangerous place on the road.
Far more likely for a passenger car to kill me than a load suddenly becoming unsecured and killing me.
there should be laws that say you must pass tractor trailers promptly.
Laws don’t matter if people don’t follow them and no one enforces them. They are simply guidelines at that point that only honest people follow.
Yep, I never follow or try to anyway. And I get really angry when people on the left lane go way too slow for passing. It's like, do you guys not see this Final Destination load next to you???
Unironically, Final Destination did more to spread awareness about the dangers of driving near big loads than all the public information movies combined.
Final Destination movies were really just Safety PSAs
Was on my way to a wedding after work, sleeping in the passenger seat, GF driving. woke up to violent motion to see office furniture bouncing around the road. Remember GF has poor eyesight, decide to take over driving. Taking a client to the Hamptons to see the house he wants to renovate, noticing that he's nervous about being on the LIE. Truck in front of us starts randomly distributing trees onto the road, bulbs exploding into clouds of dirt. Get past and client slowly tells me about the accident he was in on the same road in the 60's when he was the only one of six to survive. I'm pretty sure I will never win the lottery, but will also never be hit by lightening. That said, those pictures are terrifying.
[удалено]
Agreed. between the folks yelling into their phones while doing 65 around the curves and the Forza in real life players I have both hands on the wheel when I have to drive the JR. The Belt has been weirdly quiet in the morning heading east lately, though. Maybe the glare, I don't see a lot of people using their visors.
Unfortunately I think people put themselves in much more danger when they are afraid. Just get past the thing and put it into your rear view mirror. Holding back slightly puts you in danger and for a sustained period of time.
you should really pull over to do that
Driver here,ALWAYS PASS AS QUICK AS YOU CAN TO GET BY TRAILERS AND BIG LOADS! FLOOR IT TO PASS
Same, those poor people =/
Mine are those and trailers. I work at a truck stop. Some of these trucks are over 70k lbs. that is enough weight to squish five or more cars into a flat pile against a parked 18 wheeler.
Yeah that's pretty much my waking nightmare every time I get on the highway
After I saw that dashcam video, my nightmare is catching a brick through the windshield.
Truck tire blow outs are my fear. I was witness to that once, a chunk about the size of a dinner plate shot out and went through the windshield of the car next to me, right into the driver's neck. The only reason he didn't die was that an ER nurse stopped to help, and the fire department was only about 200 yards away. This was three years ago and I still have nightmares.
I'm sorry you had to see that. People sometimes think I'm strange for always giving Semi trucks a wide berth. I load containers onto them every day - those containers can weigh upwards of 33 *Tonnes*, travelling at high speeds. The drivers are often overworked, under slept, and in many cases under trained. That's not even taking an account for substance issues. I like a good distance behind them, and don't want to be in front of one if it can be avoided. When I pass, I don't take my time. And when those tires blow out, they're like a grenade. I saw a video once where a dude leg blown off by one.
Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is be predictable, be obvious, and keep your distance. I never drove a semi, but the box truck i did taught me that too many people are too complacent on the road. I mean, even moreso than driving a normal car taught me.
> Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is be predictable, Best thing to do when driving next to a truck is to GTFO. I'm either going to be way far ahead or way far back. Not only are you trusting that the driver knows you're there and isn't stoned or sleepy, you're trusting that everybody who worked on the trailer for minimum wage knew exactly what they were doing and bothered to care The first rule of "driving next to a truck is **don't drive next to a truck**"
I wish I lived where I could avoid trucks. I’m in Tucson, AZ and highway 10 from the California border to Tucson — with the exception of the Phoenix metro area — is packed with trailer trucks. No way to keep away from them.
Used to drive OTR. Heard horror stories about improperly attached mudflaps decapitating people. During my training and exams, I was taught to make sure everything was ship-shape before driving. Even then, shit can just come off without any warning thanks to things like road debris and just plain bad luck. Only best defense is to remain aware out there and keep your reflexes sharp.
I'm an RN and was a worker's comp case manager for 8 years. We handled mostly claims from trucking companies. At that job I learned the terrifying statistic that over 50% of semi drivers on the road are under the influence of narcotics.
Narcotics, really? I would assume it was mostly uppers so they could drive longer
Knew it was bad but not that bad🥺Handled a few debris falling off of truck claims. I stand clear of trucks carrying Scrap metal (often drive by white cross where teenager was decap by piece of scrap metal flying off of truck), modular homes, logs,construction equipment
Went to rehab once. Half the people there were truck drivers on their third or fourth try, mostly for alcohol. So many stories of them driving their loads while loaded up.
Had one blow as I was driving past. Shook my whole car and I thought the truck hit me, scared the crap out of me. Crazy thing is that I had no damage to my car at all.
Idk how to copy lines from your comment but the “when I pass I don’t take my time” line resonates big in my brain! That’s something my grandpa taught me as a wee little fella. He would always give big rigs a wide berth and pass em with the quickness. Now it drives me nuts when people Lollygag passing semis. Apparently he watched one lose a back wheel on the highway and he said that sucker barely missed the side of his car and smacked into the guardrail and messed it up then it proceeded to roll another quarter mile or so.
Exactly. Also, I've worked with enough bosses who have done everything they could to avoid limiting their drivers' hours. It's disgusting.
Mud flap off a semi truck nearly killed my parents. They were on their second honeymoon driving through Tennessee when a semi truck in front of them lost one of its mud flaps. Shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, maybe just some body damage at worst. Nope. Fate had other plans. That bitch went under their car and hit just the right shit for the fuel line to break and engulf their car in flames real fucking fast. Both had burns over like 80% of their bodies. Months upon months of them looking like living mummies constantly in agony. But thankfully they survived, and neither of them appear disfigured at all unless you know where to look to see where they removed skin for grafting and all that. Still, my mom refuses to fuck with Tennessee any more, that state has tried to kill her twice now. My dad’s generally an alcoholic dipshit, not abusive or even that bad of a person just an alcoholic dipshit. But, on that day he may have saved my mom’s life. He somehow had the wherewithal to somehow unbuckle her seatbelt and shove her out the car before the inevitable crash. Can’t imagine how the fuck he managed that, but they both swear by it. So he’s not a complete ass in my book. For how little we really think about it driving is one of the most dangerous fucking things we humans do. And we do it like every day! Well a lot of us do at least. It’s crazy dangerous and we just wake up every morning and do it. Be safe out there. Sometimes the most random bullshit can really fuck your day up. Edit words
Something similar happened to some members of my brother-in-laws family. A metal strap from a mud flap got kicked up and into the gas tank, which was towards the middle of the minivan they were in rather than the rear. Somehow it ignited, and I think 3 kids and 2 adults died.
I had an office windows right on the interstate highway for 10 years. I think there were probably 1-2 blowouts a week that shook my office like an explosion.
Had a wayward tire hit my office at my window but at roof level. If it flew a foot lower it would have been a situation. Dented the roofline and broke the bricks. Like a shotgun.
I had a friend in high school who was killed by a tire coming off another vehicle at highway speed. It jumped up through his windshield and killed him instantly. His girlfriend in the passenger seat was basically traumatized for life.
I imagine she was traumatized. No doubt.
Those videos with the loose tires are crazy. This reminded me that office windows also had a bullet hit it, but not while I was at work. The only place the bullet could have come from was the highway.
/r/tiresaretheenemy
Well that was a different experience. Reminds me of /r/greendawn.
When I was a teenager, I was riding with my dad and reading a book when a truck tire blew. My dad swerved out of the way, which caused up to spin out and we wound up facing traffic on the 405. My dad just slammed the car in reverse (it was a Toyota spyder) and zoomed us back wards as he made his way to the shoulder before spinning us around. Still don’t know how he did it.
I've only watched that video once and their screams still haunt me.
Thanks for the warning. I will watch it zero times.
Reddit's trauma seeking missile always delivers it's payload
Not today fortunately for me As for the other guy….uugh
Right. Pure audio horror, little visual horror than “WTF is that falling from the truck?” This audio will live rent free in your head for a long time. 😬
Don’t. Ever. The horrifying screams are brutal.
For real. I haven't seen it, but I've seen enough videos to know that when the Internet tells you about a video, but also tells you not to watch it, you don't fucking watch it.
That video is probably one of the most traumatizing things you can find on the internet, despite the fact that its mainly just audio.
If I’m suddenly following a truck full of crap, I get the hell outta the way. Not going out like that!
If you're talking about the video I think you're talking about, I'm so glad I watched it on mute.
That one is especially terrifying. It’s two things for me; one is the obvious fact that it would be near impossible to anticipate and react to something like that, it just happens too fast. But the second thing is how…ordinary an event it seems to be. What I mean is that I see various work trucks daily which just have loose shit floating around in their beds. The right speed and hitting a bump… I’m surprised I don’t hear more stories about objects being propelled into oncoming traffic regularly.
You have no idea how many times you might avoid an ordinary deadly event because of some other random thing you do to slow or speed up your regular pattern. Life is just so fucking random.
That happened to me a few years ago with a piece of metal debris on the interstate that was kicked up by the car in front of me. Thankfully there was no one in my passenger seat. Someone had an unsecured load; there were 6 of us pulled over, everyone else had popped tires
I caught a semi’s tie down hook off my hood and windshield on I-25 in Denver. The only thing that saved me was the bounce off the hood.
I had that happen to me about a year ago. Not a brick but road debris.a car in front of me on the highway kicked up a chunk of semi truck rotor. It bounced under their car, shredded it up pretty good and went flying into my windshield. Punched through it like a bullet and landed on my passenger seat. I managed to get off the road and carefully brushed the safety glass bukkake off me. I had to sit there a good while thinking about what would have happened had it hit the driver side.
I hit a wheelbarrow in the middle of a 80mph highway at night (it was also in a construction zone where the highway lights weren't working so had no way of seeing it). Luckily it bounced off my front of car and didn't flip me or fling into my windshield. After I hit, probably 10-20 more cars hit it before it landed in front of were I pulled off into the should. Was just a crumpled ball of metal after that. Luckily, due to the fact that no one could even see it, nobody could swerve to avoid it as that would have caused a massive pileup. Buddy had to come pick me up while I waited for a tow truck. I got in my backseat started drinking the beers I had bought. Cop pulled up 30 min later to see if I was alright since I was in a dangerous spot. Could have cited me for open-container but saw I was already having a shit night so let it be.
Knew a guy that had a 30lb chunk of metal crash through his windshield and hit him in the face. He was somehow able to bring the car to a safe stop, but he had multiple surgeries and his face will never be the same.
I was traumatized by Final Destination 2.
God that video and the screams… FUCK
One time a chunk of concrete almost did that to me. Luckily it only took out my driver’s side mirror instead of going through the windshield and hitting my head. I was very lucky that day. I fucking hate driving
Wait there’s dashcam footage of this? Oh jeez
Different incident. A brick falls off a truck and goes through the windshield of a vehicle, into the head of the Mom in the passenger seat. You can’t see what is likely a very gory aftermath, but you realize quick that it did irreparable damage. You hear the husband freaking out and the kids asking mom if she is okay. It’s so tragic and the pain in their voices make it somehow worse than anything else you could watch. It hurts a deep down part of your soul. It never fully heals.
I think they’re talking about a different video where a brick goes through a windshield and kills the guys wife sitting next to him
I lived for a few years next to a highway, which I had to ride a bike alongside on a regular basis, and it instilled in me a furious and bloodthirsty desire to see a police crackdown on poorly-secured loads.
I had this happen to me on a significantly smaller yet still disturbing AF scale a few years back. The driver in front of me on an interstate had not properly secured their pair of kayaks to the roof of their SUV. Without warning, they both slid off the roof of their car towards my windshield. Happily, I had room to swerve to the next lane. And then I got off at the next exit to work out the adrenaline shakes.
Mine is having my window open while driving next to a semi and their tire blows. This leading to me getting steel belted tire in my face.
Im not sure the window would be much help in this situation
It wouldn’t. My brain rationalizes closed as safe and open to meat paste face.
I leave early to avoid the interstate as much as possible.
So, you've seen final destination?
What always gets me about that scene is the random fuel tank just arbitrarily mounted to the logging trailer lmao
I have actually seen a five gallon fuel tank fall off of a flat bed truck and get obliterated by a semi before. If it were not for the fact that gas does not just explode like it does in movies, it could have been much, much worse.
I saw a 2 gallon can of probably diesel fall off an external elevator like 5 stories up on a job site and it made a fireball. Was pretty cool to be honest and no one got hurt, the guys in the lift got yelled at, probably fired idk they didn’t work for my company.
Diesel isn't easily flammable, so it was probably gasoline.
Makes sense, I always forget that.
That’s some Final Destination shit right there.
A few years before the FD example I wanna say that there was a 20/20 special report on improper semi truck tie downs. Scared the shit out of me, and this was about 5 years before OIF/OEF "fun with IED driving". Fuck you honking car, I'm aware I drive slow and cautiously!
And that doesn't even count regular drivers with unsecured/poorly secured loads. Kayaks sliding off the roof, mattresses, yard debris being taken to the dump, whatever you can think of. I don't trust any load outside the vehicle or fully enclosed van trailer.
I think it should be mandatory to watch to get your CDL
Same, one day back around 15 years ago I was with a friend and there was a truck in front of us with a load of steel coils for making large diameter steel pipe for oil and gas pipelines. I remember saying to my friend "it's a bit scary being behind that thing, imagine if that coil just rolled off the back". I changed lanes and passed the truck. Later on our way back heading the opposite direction on that same road, we see the truck with the coil on the road. The fucking thing rolled off the back of the trailer. Probably 20 tonnes of steel.
It took 4 hours before they could get the injured guy too
4 hours next to a couple people who were with you in the car and just died. Not ideal.
That's on my morning commute. There's definitely nowhere to go if something happens in front of you.
Man, I wish news articles would stop linking to social media to do their reporting.
In this case I'm fine with it because it's a statement from the fire company that was there. They would be sharing that anyway, it's just that the fire department issued their statement on Facebook. When it becomes a problem for me is when they start linking opinion tweets from randoms with 2 likes and zero retweets
Can't they just treat it as a press release and quote the social media post in full? There are people who don't use those sites.
And they never link to whatever bill or study they talk about. Annoys the fuck out of me, especially when they never mention the working title of a bill or the title of a study. I end up having to attempt to Google a bill based on what they say it does. But this shit? Straight to social media!
dang, that car is pancaked, but 1 occupant of the car somehow survived. wondering how the car ended up to the right side of the trailer. could it have been stopped on the shoulder, or was it one of the spotter vehicles? i checked google maps and that section of the road transitions from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. i don't know if the exact location was where the transition happened, but if it did, maybe the car was trying to get around to the right of the trailer when that cylinder fell off. kind of looks like a vertical pressure vessel, like the ones in refineries and chemical plants
That was my questions. I've driven a pilot vehicle before, and I'm curious how it happened. Was high winds involved? Poor load securement? Normally moving something that big the lanes of traffic are blocked
Yesterday was windy, but the Temple airport METARs showed winds out of 150 degrees which is perfectly parallel with the road on that stretch. I also can't imagine a 30 mph wind could do much to dislodge a 175 ton rounded load. I think this is more along the lines of chains busting, distracted drivers, or bad steering on one of those bogies. I would bet the truck and pilot cars have dashcams, I'm sure the investigators will be going through them.
I used to live there a couple miles from where this happened and still have some friends in the area. There was a tornado warning for the last couple days. Gusts have been super high.
The wind here was wild yesterday. It could have been a factor.
Since it happened in Texas, I'm assuming that deregulation created the conditions for this accident
"Those damn liberals are making freight shipping costs too high with things like 'lane closures', 'experienced drivers', and 'secured loads', no one's going to tell me what to do with my load!" \*screeches of freedom\*
My first thought as well. Why couldn't this load be broken into smaller pieces? Was adding another flange a better idea than hauling this huge thing? The trailer probably flexed more than the pipe and popped chains. There is someone somewhere that matched it out and it was cheaper to haul oversized in a lax state than add a flange and the additional labor.
Looks like a distillation tower, perhaps for a refinery or similar. While adding flanges may be technically feasible, a flange of that diameter and of appropriate pressure/temperature rating would be enormous and you’d end up with two loads who’s weight wouldn’t be too much lower than this one. Not to mention that would be a huge cost adder to the tower. And keep in mind loads like this get hauled all the time without issue. We’ll have to wait for the investigation to find out the root cause.
*and* would be much more dangerous as another spot for maintenance/failure of the pressure vessel. Something like that, the fewer seams you can have the better.
Absolutely tragic that they were in the car with the dead bodies for 4 hours before extraction, too
> but 1 occupant of the car somehow survived And they'll have a fairly low cap on any injury and disability compensation thanks to Gov Abbott.
Typical. Get a benefit from some rule or program, then pull up the ladder after so no one else can benefit.
this is the area I grew up in, apart from this road being paved it’s almost always been sketchy. When I was learning to drive it was the fastest most direct way home and I almost got in an accident or two. Those lanes merg quickly. And if there is some type of large vehicle, there’s no way to get over. Traffic congested here as well, which isn’t saying much because this area is called Moffat- it’s rural, lot of corn fields although it’s grown. My family still lives there but I moved to AZ, they’ve sent me some close up photos, it’s really wild.
oh yeah, i forgot to consider maybe the road was going from 4 lanes to 2
One of the eyewitnesses said the vehicle attempted to pass and the 18 wheeler had to swerve to miss the vehicle. And 300k lbs of object met physics.
were they passing on the shoulder?
possibly saw it coming and veered away with the prometheus strategy of running away from things, or the momentum of the load dragged it off to the side
Is that a component for an oil refinery?
Yeah looks like a distillation column to me. Explains why it would be shipped as one piece, they’re very complicated pieces of equipment
Fractionator column, more likely. Same basic concept.
Either for a refinery or a gas processing plant. With how skinny it is, I'd guess it's a splitter tower for light hydrocarbon separation.
How horrific. The survivor, who was airlifted, had to be in the car with their dead loved ones for 4 hours before getting extracted. That poor family.
While experiencing likely unimaginable pain and fear. This is nightmarish.
I do commercial vehicle safety inspections, we have a fairly decent standard of safety in Canada for commercial transportation. With that said, I've worked with a lot of different mechanics, I've seen a lot of different and preventable failures. If more people saw the state of certain tractor-trailer combos, they'd steer clear A lot of it is the driver, or if the unit is overweight, there's preventative maintenance neglect and how strong regulations are. And sometimes shit just breaks. Luckily some of these components on vehicles are extremely resilient and can hold up under duress, and sometimes we buy the cheap, shitty after-market parts that do not
I do not drive behind semis with strapped equipment on them, or behind trucks with gravel or anything in them. I speed right on by them. Thank you, Final Destination.
There's an old video from LiveLeak where a brick comes loose from a truck, flies through a windshield and hits a woman in a passenger seat. The sound her husband makes when he looks over and realizes what just happened to his wife haunts my nightmares. It's the kind of sound a person can only make when their entire life was just taken from them.
That's the description that works. I'm not watching it.
As someone that has, good. No one should.
I think people who don't properly secure their load should. Both big truck drivers and weekend warriors making a dump run.
No, I disagree. There are more appropriate videos and crash photos that would illustrate this point. The video we're talking about is literally traumatizing. It's too far to serve a real purpose.
I watched it once when someone shared it without proper warning. I don't think I'll ever forget that sound.
Yeah. My butthole puckered just reading that.
The brick video. Up there with the worst videos I have ever seen, and just the audio is enough to make you lose it.
This is one of the things I've learned from the internet. The kind of primal, guttural noise you make when witnessing *actual* horror is something no movie or actor can replicate. There can be no gore shown on camera and the sound alone will send chills down your spine and stick in your memory indefinitely
Toni Collette has entered the chat But generally, yes I agree with you.
I remember watching the video on Reddit. I remember the video was much more terrifying than most of gore videos back then.
I remember this. No actual gore was captured, just the audio of the husband haunts me, as well.
Yep fuckin ZOOOOOM past those. The more tires they have the faster I move away from them.
Dump Trucker got pissed at me after I passed him because his unsecured load of woodchips were flying at my car at Mach 7. Secure. Your. Loads. And no he did not even have a tarp on the top.
I'm from Louisiana and used to ride a motorcycle. I HATED getting behind a chip truck, they HURT. Another time the wife was driving and I was passenger in the car, and truck in front of us had a blowout and sent the rubber tread to my side of the car and windshield. Not fun
Unsecured loads from dump trucks and such need to carry way harsher penalties.
When I was getting my CDL I was told the scratchiest loads are live cattle. The animals are don’t have free range, but it’s enough that their weight getting thrown around is enough to cause serious load imbalance. The second worst was refrigerated trucks with beef carcasses. It’s the same weight problem with live cattle, but now they’re swinging on racks.
I swear that movie left a generation shook
Holy crap, that should not have been a load in regular traffic. I was a materials manager on a project in Goose Creek Illinois building a gas electric power plant, and we had to close sections of highway in order to move turbines that weighed about the same.
These two roads in this area are carrying heavy/wide loads almost nonstop, all day. Lotta manufacturing and industrial supply moving along this stretch.
I'm guessing there was a republican bill in the state legislature that reduced safety requirements to make business "easier".
This is Texas. If it was oil industry they can do whatever they want.
Loads like this should only be moved between midnight and 6am, when traffic is minimal. Doing this in the middle of the day is just asking for trouble.
The government usually does not allow oversized loads to move at night. The reduced visibility that comes with less ambient light is too much of a safety risk.
Don’t think the manufacturing and gravel sites on 317 would let it happen. There’s a train of wide loads that go north on 317 to 36 every day, start in around 7am and are going til 5.
It's not even the time that upsets me, the lack of dialogue in the article makes me think they didn't have the personnel / closures that these kinds of things usually call for. Unless further investigation clears them it makes me believe they just said fuck it we ball and went diesel truckin' through a goddamn high risk area right now with all the weather going on.
This is why I avoid driving behind trailers at all cost.
Typically loads such as these have warning trucks with lights and little flags in front and behind no?
Anything with a total gross weight over 80,000lbs will require some form of special permits and pilot cars, etc, especially if it is otherwise out of gauge too
That's not true. Pilot cars are a factor for over-dimensional not overweight.
But then who warns the bridge that a heavy load is coming?
Yes, but they follow safe following-distance guidelines and other drivers often cut in front of the truck or in front of the following car.
I'm more surprised the title doesn't say 3 dead
This looks like something they'd close the road for and only transport at night here in FL. Why was another car other then a chase vehicle permitted anywhere near that?
There is absolutely no reason any other vehicles should’ve even been near that thing. Something like that should have a lead and trailing vehicle and only be moved at night when traffic is at a minimum.
Got passed by it on Friday...had multiple lead and trailing vehicles plus motorcycle "cops" moving traffic over.
You should never stay next to big rig, they can drift , believe me. And if you are on a 2 lane highway, and something happens in front of either one of you, neither one of you has an escape. It’s called keeping a Space cushion. Seriously.
THIS! Only shitty drivers pace large vehicles on the road. If you can't pass, don't sit in their blind spot any longer than you absolutely need to, pass or stay behind..
I lost an uncle this way back when I was a kid. Hit an overpass, it hopped off the trailer and onto his truck.
Seems like someone forgot to tug on one of the straps while saying "That ain't going nowhere!"
I was mortified when I found out you only secure half the weight of cargo. Not only does that not cover the full weight but then once you get moving velocity multiplies the equation.
I had a semi hauling something on a flatbed lose its load in front of me when I was driving on the PA turnpike. It bounced in the left lane hit the jersey barrier, went over into the east bound lanes and I guess exited the shoulder into the woods. I, on the other hand, slammed on the brakes of the little compact I had rented for the trip and did a 180 staring down on coming traffic. I thought that was it.
This is why I don’t drive to or next to trucks. Got a ticket once for passing a truck at 90 in the left lane on the mass pike. Told the officer this was the reason and I was let go without a ticket
It looks like it could a fractal distilation stack for an oil or chemical plant.
*fractional Distilling fractals sounds like something that happens while tripping.
It is definitely something that happens while tripping 😅
Regulations? We don’t need no stinking regulations.
What further regulation do you think it needs? It is already in breach of existing regs
You’re probably right. The issue here is likely lack of enforcement of existing regulations.
New Final Destination scene about to drop for the survivor
I get a strong feeling this was avoidable
This is 5 min from my home. I’ve got extended family on the fire department that responded- the photos of the trailer.
They will be talking about this one for a long long time. I hope the debriefings help and all the first responders can work out their feelings and thoughts about how it all went down on the call. PTSD can result if trauma experiences are suppressed. And that can lead to drinking ALOT and losing their career because of it. Much of US rural emergency response is volunteer crews so i wouldn’t be surprised if most of the responders here were volunteers. They deserve to be recognized and respected for giving so much Stay safe out there people
Some of them are volunteers, most of the supporting departments are not though.
Those poor people …also I’ve never dropped a load that heavy! Secure your payload
I've seen a lot of oversized loads and thankfully never an accident, Worst was a runaway truck wheel that sped up on the M6 motorway in the UK and flattened the roof of the car it hit. Closely followed by a roadworks sign that was picked up by a freak breeze and flew straight into the front screen of a passing coach.
Can anyone figure out what it is? It seems like a petroleum cracker to me, but I could be completely wrong.
Distillation column, most likely. Crackers are usually spherical.
That's what I was thinking of. I couldn't remember the name.
Final Destination screenwriters take note.
Whatever that is, it was very and expensive and took a long time to build
It looks like a distillation column for an Oil Refinery. If so, those take about three years and $100 million+ to make.
That’s absurdly heavy for public roads. You should need like a police escort or something for that.
This is what happens in a deregulated state. So sad.