(By Greg Rourke) – Truck driving is serious business. Weather, road conditions, other drivers and equipment failures can all conspire to ruin your day. Here we have an example of one day this driver would rather forget.
The video opens with an 18 wheeler trailing heavy smoke from it’s brakes. They can get hot enough for the friction material to catch fire, I’ve experienced it. He’s coming down a mountain road in Mexico, and an alert police officer has spotted the problem and is giving an escort. The description claims they reached speeds of over 100 MPH, it seems plausible.
If there’s anything good about this situation, the driver seems to handle the truck well. Of course, we don’t know why the brakes failed to begin with, but with the officer warning traffic as best he can, the trucker takes the best lines through the turns. It would be easy to loose one’s cool in this dilemma, but the truck stays upright and avoids other vehicles. Typically there are signs letting truckers know there’s an escape ramp ahead, the driver keeps his wits about him and drills it with skill. The load shifts through the front of the trailer, and the tractor suffers heavy damage. Luckily the driver emerges from the wreckage, seemingly through the side of the sleeper. Off in search of fresh undies no doubt.
And now you know why these NAFTA trucks need to be banned in the USA
What’s “sphincter” in Spanish?? Int 68 in western Md. has several “runaway” ramps…they look well used.
What we don’t see is the huge diesel engine installed in the trailer to win the bet that you can do a burn out on all the rear wheels…
I have seen more than one truck using the arrester beds here in South Australia… the freeway coming in to Adelaide from the eastern states ends with a few k’s of fairly steep downhill gradient so theres 3 or 4 of them within a few kays… but ours always point uphill at a fairly steep angle (against the downward grade of the freeway) so that gravity as much as the gravel slows them down – I’ve never seen a truck suffer any damage as a result, at least not to this extent
Makes my belly hurt. Still, the driver did a great job and avoided everyone – as did the cops.
I’ve towed thru the mountains both from Wilmington to Ohio and back and back to NC from Paso Robles with the Avanti on a (seemingly) cast iron trailer. That trip took us over both the Rockies and the Applachians. Luckily I’ve never needed the escape ramps nor have I seen them used – and I’m OK with that!
I agree that that ramp didn’t seem to be uphill but I wonder if that’s an optical illusion caused by the camera angle. Just guessing here.
Dan
I’m surprised the trailer didn’t catch fire before he ditched. That’s a lot of heat.
Can only imagine the smell of fried brakes and shit pantalones
That is pretty terrifying. Good job on the part of both the cop and the trucker at keeping that from turning fatal.
I think the ramp there was flat, or nearly so – just covered with sand or something else the truck was supposed to sink into.
Seen many years ago on the Grapevine in California……that\’s what happens when you blow the brake check area on the pass…..
Glad everyone was ok. Is this what they mean by coming in HOT? 🙂