Fatality accident

[MrFedEx]

Nice of the camera truck to stop and help out, huh? Maybe he was in a spot where it would be even more unsafe to stop.Perhaps he already knew the wreck probably wasn't survivable.The person who posted earlier about not screwing around on Donner Pass wasn't kidding. It's not only steep, but has very narrow lanes, rough road surfaces, and lots of idiot 4-wheelers, and that's in the summer. In the winter, it's 10 times as bad. I believe that it is the longest grade in the US, climbing continuously from just east of Sacramento all the way to the summit just west of Donner Lake.

To be that out of control, that truck had to have either burned-up his brake shoes, exhausted his brake air supply, or both. If he did lose his air, the TPV should have engaged and at least partially locked the whole thing up, even if it was metal on metal grinding against the drums.

It makes you want to throw the Jake on full, and drop to about 5th gear just to be extra safe.

 

[dannyboy]

dear fedex

if you would please notice at the end of the loop, said driver did pull over. until then there was no place off the road for his rig. the rail was next to the road, not allowing for a safe place to stop.

as for the other part of your post, i agree. while the camera did not record an impact with the truck, it did look like(as it blew by) that it had almost turned over as it passed.

it was out of control. i doubt the driver could do much but hold on.

i heard we had one in ky that lost it pulling a set of doubles a few years back. tried to jump off. got hit by the back wheels of the trailers.

bad situation.

d

 

[MrFedEx]

dear fedex

if you would please notice at the end of the loop, said driver did pull over. until then there was no place off the road for his rig. the rail was next to the road, not allowing for a safe place to stop.

as for the other part of your post, i agree. while the camera did not record an impact with the truck, it did look like(as it blew by) that it had almost turned over as it passed.

it was out of control. i doubt the driver could do much but hold on.

i heard we had one in ky that lost it pulling a set of doubles a few years back. tried to jump off. got hit by the back wheels of the trailers.

bad situation.

d

I couldn't tell if he was going to pull over. Like you said, nothing but guard rail for awhile. There are not very many safe places to pull-off on Donner...it's too bad this particular driver wasn't close to an escape ramp. I'm not sure if you have them back east, but they are very common out west where the grades are steep and long and strategically placed for incidents just like this one. If you can get to the escape ramp it will stop you, but you'll probably have to go shopping for a new spine (and shorts).

I've driven Donner, and have refused to take a non-Jake equipped tractor on the run because it is so steep and dangerous. I'm guessing that UPS assigns twin screws with Jakes on Donner just to be safe.

 

[dannyboy]

yeah, here in the hillbilly hills, we got some. maybe ought to visit some time. could be pleasantly surprised as to what we got in these hills?

d

 

[dilligaf]

........................ non-Jake equipped tractor ................

Them thar are flat land tractors. They have no business being out here in the wild west.

 

[dilligaf]

MID WEST Daniel, just in case you wanted to know. I've been up and down some of those hills back east and though they are not like our actual mountains, jakes do come in handy back east. However, they are not needed very often.

 

[MrFedEx]

I know someone who works in law enforcement near where this accident occurred, and I got the following information. The camera truck was a WalMart tractor-trailer, not the accident vehicle. The site is just east of Colfax, CA on westbound I-80. The speed limit for trucks is 25 mph, and ironically,there had been a digital speed readout for truckers at this site that had only recently been removed by CalTrans and replaced by a standard warning sign (not a good move). The WalMart truck is probably going right about 25 mph, so you can estimate the crashed truck's speed relative to the safe speed on the part of WalMart.Both the driver and co-driver were killed, and nobody even knew there was a second person until a logbook was found a couple of days later. Searchers went back to the crash scene and located the co-driver at that point in time.

Amazing footage. I'm going to forward it to our RTD(feeder) department in the hope that they'll be more cautious in the future when driving in the mountains. Thanks for posting it.

 

[dannyboy]

that reminds me of a case here.

abandoned vehicle is towed away along side the interstate, several days after being left behind.

couple more days go by before my brother gets the call of a body hanging from a tree along the interstate.

it seems like the guy parked his car, and went and hung himself with nylon rope. scratches around his neck indicate that he changed his mind, but the nylon was too tight for him to be successful.

even with all the traffic, and the cops that had it towed away, no one noticed. so i could see them not finding the other body.

sad.

d

 

[dilligaf]

I see many tractors out here that are marked on the outside of the cab or sleeper, "team operation". This should be standard practice for all companies and O/O's. There is no excuse to not do this. It costs a few dollars and could save many lives.