Be careful out there! Bizarre accident.

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dishdude

dishdude

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Driver rear ended a semi carrying an oversized load and somehow survived! The pictures of this accident are chilling.

http://www.cbs5az.com/story/34706226/metal-cargo-smashes-through-suvs-windshield

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Yikes, heard about this last week. While a bit of this is obviously the SUV driver's fault, the law prohibits stuff hanging more than 6 feet off of the back of a truck.
 
Ray Tomlinson
Regardless of how close he was following the laws in every state limit how much the load my stick out behind the vehicle. In most states it is something like 3 feet without a flag or extended light, in this case the load was obviously more than 10 feet beyond the vehicle. It is also illegal to have any extention of the load on the left and one foot to the right. I believe anything beyond 6 feet requires a special permit, flashing light, and an escort vehicle following close enough to keep another vehicle from getting between them.

From the article comments. I agree with Ray Tomlinson said. I hope they hang that scum ball driver and the sleazy company he drives for.
 
Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
Even though the load was setup wrong, what the heck would anyone be doing close to something like that?


Texting, phone.
 
Looks like it could be under 10' to me.. Obviously can't see the red flag since it would be buried in the SUV.

We routinely transport this same metal decking on our work trucks, however 10' is the max off the back end with a red marker of sorts, and we measure every time it's even remotely close.

I blame the SUV driver, regardless. Pay attention to what's in front of you; Darwinism at its best here.
 
Looking at that first picture closely, the edge of the load is just past the driver's headrest. That yellow square on the driver seat appears to be the flag. Glad no one was seriously injured and agree with others here that the SUV driver was at fault
 
I bet he ducked out of the way once he finally saw it. The very end of that metal is about where most people would stop assuming the metal wasn't there. Probably ducked and couldn't hit the brakes, looks like he just lightly rolled into the trailer looking at the damage.
 
Originally Posted By: Drosselmier
When driving behind a load like that, one duos not see it's length. One only can see through the tubes. Very deceiving. Driver was very lucky in this instance. Lesson learned.


That's a very good point: depth perception is absent when viewing the sheetmetal edge-on.

The driver may not have been texting, or inattentive, he may have misjudged his distance in combination with other factors and was basing his deceleration on the bumper of the trailer, not realizing how close he was to the load.

The fact that he hit the bumper means that he screwed up, no doubt, but I'll bet he didn't perceive that the load projected that far out...
 
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Originally Posted By: 92saturnsl2
Looks like it could be under 10' to me.. Obviously can't see the red flag since it would be buried in the SUV.

We routinely transport this same metal decking on our work trucks, however 10' is the max off the back end with a red marker of sorts, and we measure every time it's even remotely close.

I blame the SUV driver, regardless. Pay attention to what's in front of you; Darwinism at its best here.

I agree, but truck driver needs to have red flag / cloth on end of load to warn drivers.
 
4ft. After that you need a red flag. Not sure what the limit to overhang can be.found it: 2/3rds the length of the trailer or no more than 75ft total length.
 
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Just this morning on my way home from the hospital a car passed us crossing a double yellow in a 25mph zone while I was going about 30mph. He had a phone in his hand doing whatever. The road turned sharply left, real sharp. He was going at least 50mph and never even made an attempt turn and his brake lights never lit up. He hit a solid bank of dirt that did not give. The cloud of dust was really impressive, like a bomb blast.

We stopped to see if he was okay and he was bloody but still texting. He did not have his seat belt on and evidently the airbag knocked him toward he center of his pickup. We stayed to warn traffic and called 911. The driver claimed to the police officer that something "broke" and he lost control. My 12 year old granddaughter played her video of him passing us and the crash and gave a copy to the cop. I think that took care of his story. Some people have more important things to do than pay attention to such a trivial task as driving. The saving grace here was that his accident was a solo event and no one else was hurt.

It took a smart phone to beat a smart phone. My granddaughter is keeping me up to date on everything I need to know about using my Pixel. I'd be willing to bet that her video of this event was useful.
 
A high school senior in Iowa hit a school bus almost head on near the school while he was chatting someone up with his cell phone. I'm opposed to technology but it seems to me that people with cell phones are addicted to the thing and can't keep from checking it every two minutes. Why is staying in touch with who knows who so important that people can't leave the thing alone? And young girls seem to be the most addicted of all. Absolutely can't take their eye off of
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their phone even to eat. And ninety nine percent of those conversations are just plain gibberish
 
Everybody brings up cell phones but there hasn't been a single report this driver was on the phone.

Newsflash: Accidents do happen, and they do happen without cell phones.
 
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