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Anybody see the news report about the trucker trapped in his wrecked rig for two days in western Canada? I saw the tail end of the report! Looks like something from " Highway from hell" the driver's gonna be ok fortunately!

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On 3/5/2017 at 11:46 AM, BillyT said:

Anybody see the news report about the trucker trapped in his wrecked rig for two days in western Canada? I saw the tail end of the report! Looks like something from " Highway from hell" the driver's gonna be ok fortunately!

I've heard a story years ago that a driver went off of I-40 in "The Gorge" in western N.C. and was trapped in the wreck and couldn't get out because he had broken both arms. They say- I don't know who "they" are in this case- the truck couldn't be seen because of heavy brush and bushes, and the wreck wasn't even found until that fall or winter when the leaves fell. He wasn't hurt that badly, except for the broken arms, and just died there because he couldn't get out. Whether this is actually true or not, I do not know.

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Producer of poorly photo-chopped pictures since 1999.

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How did he get the Jersey barrier between the tandem without being aware it was there?!😁 unfreaking believable! Was trying to think of the best screwups I've seen over the yrs! Here are two! I'm running I 87 in upstate NY doing 60 and a dry van passes me and his last axle has no tires on the two wheels sparks are flying! I try to get him on the radio! Not surprising really! He's in his own little world! Like all of us I've blown tires! Always when loaded, usually one goes,you hear it blow and pull over right? I've never had two blow at once! Most likely,one blew and put all the weight on the other since he was completely numb he kept driving unaware of the one blowing out and the other one heated up and blew!  This next one is a classic! I'm at the Flying J  in Gary In I was parked in the lot, and walking back to my truck ( it was daylight so 50/50 chance of getting to my truck alive!) Anyway there is one parking space in the row,everyone is facing out this guy is pulling a reefer with a Cabover and he swings out with the intention of pulling IN the space! There is another Cabover parked to the left of the open spot with the driver at the wheel.I can see and the parked driver can see at the last minute that the " unit" isn't going to clear his windshield! So the poor guy is frantically trying to "backpedal" into the sleeper! (He hit the horn too late on his way back") The reefer unit takes out his windshield,the A pillar, and part of the left door! The driver made it into the sleeper without injury! Whew! Several drivers witnessed this,so when I saw the uninjured fellow head for the right door I just kept walking! Wish I had a camcorder! This was before cell phone cameras! By the way it didn't look like his trailer would have cleared on the right either,but he didn't have to worry about that!

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OD, the gorge always made me nervous especially in the wee hours of the morning! Its always foggy! It isn't steep, but the turns are so tight that you always have four wheelers trying to go around you bad in the tourist season! Have you ever heard of salt river canyon in Arizona? Is supposed to have such a long drop that when a trucker or motorist goes off the edge they just remove the bodies and leave the wreckage! I heard of this in the 60s, I'm gonna look it up and see if I've ever been near there!

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pretty common sight up here in upstate ny to see some of the Maggot Wagons coming up from Jersey with 5 different drivers in the sleepers none that can speak English and have them drive for miles and miles when tires, wheels or a whole hub with tires attaches comes off....

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Lost wrecks on the interstates are not that uncommon. I responded to a car wreck within a 1/2 mile of the infamous 495/95/395 interchange in Springfield, VA, one of the busiest on the east coast, that had gone over an embankment into the center median two days before we found it. The driver survived. We also responded to an incident where the driver drove into a paver parked beside the interstate that was not found until the crew reported to work the following day. The driver was killed in that one.

I have also responded to incidents on the interstate where we diligently searched for the wreck and could not find it, only to be dispatched to the same incident again when some one else located it. You feel like crap for missing it, but you have to remember that we also ran a fair number of false calls out there as well as incidents where the callers had no idea where they were. Anybody who says they never missed an incident on an interstate is either lying or they just never ran that many calls out there.

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Money, sex, and fire; everybody thinks everyone else is getting more than they are!

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Maddog, are the " maggot wagons" you refer to the walking floor garbage wagons coming out of that landfill in the Bronx, or are you referring to the personal hygiene of the (5) drivers!😁 Mower man, I used to run across I 10 into California and occasionally Vegas with conversation vans in 99 and2000, they were running "Mexican towbars" with up to three used( junk) cars from the back lots of car dealers going to Mexico also saw a lot of medium duty and class 8 used trucks (cut in half to avoid the duty and welded back together at their destination in Mexico and central America! The junk equipment and marginal drivers kept the DOT busy after Nafta passed! Fxfym a four wheeler passed me once on 495 in dead darkness with his lights off ( had one of those digital dashboards where the instruments are lit all the time) How do ANY of them make it home alive?!

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walkin floor trailers coming from the city, real fun to get behind on I87 and I90 on a hot summer day when the maggots start hitting your windshield. even better when we have to go out and tow or change a tire on one of those drippy things. seems the only English they know is '' Me no got money''

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Quote

Fxfym a four wheeler passed me once on 495 in dead darkness with his lights off ( had one of those digital dashboards where the instruments are lit all the time) How do ANY of them make it home alive?!

A few don't. I worked at the company that was first due at the Springfield interchange for close to ten years over the course of my career. That station ran interstate calls all day every day. Our company logo is "First due where the world goes through" inscribed over a pile of spaghetti that is a diagram of the 95, 495, 395 interchange. The combination of out of state drivers, heavy local traffic, a large non-indigenous driving population and a mega-confusing road layout leads to a lot of incidents.

In the 70's we used to run a fair number of Florida fruit flies in the early morning hours. I always figured the Bennys ran out about the time they made it that far North and they would hit the intersection a little too hot to make it around without turning over.

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Money, sex, and fire; everybody thinks everyone else is getting more than they are!

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  • 4 months later...

Just remembered an anecdote concerning maggots from my days in the mobile welding business! My best accounts were a couple of small refuse contractors! So In midsummer I go out to weld on the back of a garbage truck he picked up at ponderosa steak house two days ago! I roll out the cables,start the machine and walk back to the truck! The " sweep blade" was split open and packed with suet and maggots! The wind blew the aroma back in my face! I rolled up my cables, shut off the machine, and called my customer! "Take that $#?% to the car wash and pick up a couple "clean accounts" and call me in a couple of days! I welded the truck a couple days later 😁

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In the early '70s my dad had a contract for one of his drivers to haul chicken offal in Jacksonville FL using tarp top dump trailers. When it got real hot that stuff would percolate and push out over the sides. A small town sheriff arrested one of the drivers for allowing that stuff to fall from his truck while driving through his town. One time a driver rolled his truck off the side of the interstate, I'll never forget the smell of that mess.

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In Kodiak AK they keep an open trailer at the fish processing plant to catch the remains of the processed fish that will be turned into fish meal. The trailer normally has a mesh net over it to keep the eagles out of it, but on at least one occasion the net was not used and several eagles ate themselves to death. And yes, the trailer and the plant have a rather distinctive odor.

Money, sex, and fire; everybody thinks everyone else is getting more than they are!

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