Ninth Victim Found In Okla. Crash Site (Semi slammed into cars stopped for accident)

[lindisfarne]

Source: Koco news (TV)

MIAMI, Okla. -- The Oklahoma Highway Patrol says a ninth fatality in a northeast Oklahoma turnpike wreck has been confirmed after crews found another body in a car that had been caught under a tractor-trailer.

The accident happened about 1 p.m. Friday when a tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped by an earlier accident on the Will Rogers Turnpike northeast of Miami.

Patrol Lt. George Brown said a ninth victim was found hours later when tow trucks were finally able to lift the truck from atop a car that had been crushed underneath.

Read more: http://www.koco.com/news/19872910/detail.html

---

Call me paranoid, but I always watch my rear view mirror and keep some clearance between me & the car in front if there aren't at least a few cars behind me in that kind of a situation. Of course, if there are barriers on both sides, you're simply toast if someone doesn't slow down.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Damn... those are horrible accidents

every time...

RIP

[Faygo Kid]

2. Horrid. Live here in DC on the Red Line, also with 9 fatalities this week.

Life is short. Live it.

[downindixie]

3. I try my best to keep my vehicle

a long ways in front of the tractor-trailers when I'm driving on the interstate.Always keeping my eyes on the rear view mirror.If the truck driver is pill up or sleeply you are at their mercy. I know that I exceed the speed limit at times,but only to stay ahead of the trucks. The truck drivers always say its the cars fault,that they can't stop as quick as a car. They should think about that when they are so close to the bumper of your car. Reduce the hours that they can drive and give them time to refresh themselves.

[Happy Vic]

4. Rebuild and expand our railroads

Other than for short hauls there really is little excuse for using trucks as a primary means of transporting goods.

50,000Lb 18 Wheeled Leviathans blasting down the roads are not only killers of people, they are a wasteful and inefficient means of transporting goods...

If we were to rebuild and expand our railroads..

That would be a public works project with tangible benefits to Jobs the economy, environment..safety..all good things.

I guess that means if proposed it would be fought against tooth and nail.

[sandyj999]

6. Yes let's take away my husband's job.

Not necessarily the career he wanted but after the company where he worked for 31 years totally downsized we decided this was the way to go. He started at this job at eighteen and had no other training. Due to the fact the printing business had totally changed their technology he had to learn a new trade. He now is gone 5-6 days at a time. Does he like living in a truck? Not really, but you do what you have to do. And although I'm sure the railroads won't take over before we are gone the trucking business supports a lot of families.

[Happy Vic]

16. Your families job

Build new railroad lines completely across the USA and to Alaska.

There will be more work for your husband hauling short loads during construction at the beginning. Later pulling goods off the train for local communities.

We could use Natural Gas to power the trucks something we have more of in the US than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Trucks which would clean the air as they drive in cities rather than pollute it.

Not a losing proposition for working people..

Of course any work done would have to be done for actual costs and a small fixed percent of profit by companies who were not owned by Wall Street investor scum..

Unions would have to be satisfied with wages that were consistent with the rest of society.. If the average pay in a community is $40k than that's got to be the average pay for the railroad construction crews while they are working there.

These things would have to be agreed to in advance.

Let the Congress Hammer out the wages and profit margins and how it is to be calculated exactly..Let the OMB and Treasury oversee the books.

Come up with an ISO standard for the whole affair, Hammer out the route (big fight) Then build the thing everywhere at once rather than from one end to the other.

The American people can do just about anything if we can get the Kleptocrats and Wall Street scum out of our pockets.

If a Wall Street Suit wants in on building the railroad let them pick up a pick (smile) or learn how to drive a truck like your husband.. Let's just make sure their free ride, their Bonus days raiding the 401K funds of average Americans end.

We have to say to them and their lobbyists and any Elected Officials in Washington who support them ... "You got us"..

You been in the pockets of the American people stealing the wealth of our nation long enough.. Your out.. Take your money, take your hookers, your Cocaine and hit the road.. We are done with you.. go on just get out.

"But We need business leaders Captains of Industry".... They are worth that 21 million dollar bonus.." (money stolen from the 401Ks of working people)"

Go on with ya...

The guy who spent his life preparing for, then planned and executed the largest land battle since the end of WWII..around 1990 remember? Oh and he had the least American casualties in the history of Warfare for the number of men and women engaged...

He and his wife lived in a 1700 square foot brick house that they did not even own. His base pay was around $65K. None of his subordinates the men and women who did the job made more than he did..

$5000 hookers and DOM?.. most of the folks involved were lucky to have a $5000 car and happy to have a Budweiser.

We can find new "Captains of Industry".. ones that are not thieves and crooks.

Decent honest folks who do not hold the people in contempt. For whom gold is not the measure of their worth.

They have been here all along..

[michreject]

9. It's 80,000 lbs

except in Mi. where it is 182,000 lb limit.

[jmowreader]

13. Even the trucking companies are saying that now...

You ever hear of intermodal freight?

Intermodal freight is where cargo is transported using more than one transportation mode: rail and truck, air and truck, water and truck, water, rail and truck, whatever. Right now, the average length of haul for a trucking company is down quite a bit from where it was just ten years ago. Ten years ago it was almost routine for East Coast shippers to ship to West Coast consignees. Now, they'll ship trailers by rail from the East Coast to Los Angeles, where a power unit will get under them and pull the load to its final destination. Trucking lines are also getting into brokerage: if they've got a load running from, say, Boston to Salt Lake City, it's getting common to put the trailer on a train heading to Utah then hire a Utah-based trucker to pull the trailer to its final destination.

Still, I don't think you'd ever be able to expand the rail system in this country. There are WAY too many people outside the transportation industry who would fight it. If you were to propose building a rail line between Fayetteville and Raeford (that's 22 miles), everyone and his brother would be running into hearings screaming about derailments of trains carrying hazmat. Don't get me wrong, this happens...but it's not common. However, if they decided to do this the Fayettenam Observer would have a story on the front page telling you of a scenario where a trainload of a chemical that sounds really fucking scary (they would choose one on the Forbidden list--chemicals that cannot be offered for shipment*) derailed, the chemicals got out and five thousand people would have to evacuate in the middle of the night. They would tell you about the children--with this fucking newspaper the only people who matter are The Children. And by the time the lawsuits got settled, the proposed line would be forgotten and no one would ever think about building a rail line in North Carolina again.

[Happy Vic]

17. Make it a Space Race...

Let the President set out the objective..Like President Kennedy did.. Then really fight to make it happen..

The Conservatives would not battle against the Objective..

They would whine and moan about assaults on Capitalism over kicking out the Wall Street Goons and their Corporations but what's new?

We could build a new nationwide railroad system... Real jobs would be created and real benefits to all Americans would acrue..

You understand it better than I it seems.. Do you think that might work?.. Make it a National Objective.

[jmowreader]

24. I don't think so, but it's possible

There are a few reasons why it very well might work.

First, forget all the Fat Cats stuff. Trucking companies aren't massive all-encompassing leviathans. YRC (the company formed in the merger of Yellow Freight and Roadway Systems) has 49,000 employees and they're the biggest carrier in the United States. By comparison, Lowe's has 216k, Kraft Foods has 98,000, Sears has 337,000...I'm not mentioning Walmart here because not only do we know how large they are, their in-house trucking fleet, if spun out into its own company, would be one of the top 25 carriers in the United States. (The one I work for is 19th.) I think the Fat Cats would LOVE an expansion of rail; rail is less expensive than truck, and for most things it's fast enough. But like I said in the post that brought this on, I don't think they'd ever get the right-of-way. People don't WANT railroad tracks in their areas. They don't like waiting on trains. They don't like listening to trains. They don't want to worry about a train derailment destroying their communities, even though serious derailments are very rare.

The comparison to the space program? I like it. But seriously? If you tried starting the space program today, Limbaugh's bleating about how much it costs coupled with the fundies' insistence that it's going to piss God off if we try launching a rocket into the heavens would kill it.

[create.peace]

34. ITA railroads are 3-4 times as fuel efficient. nt

[madmom]

7. I try to avoid interstates because of things like this. I am one of those people who

question the "trucks can't stop on a dime" meme but they tail gate all the time even when you are going over the speed limit. I know all truckers are not that way but there are enough of them that it gives them all a bad rap.

[jmowreader]

10. You're at their mercy even if the driver's totally alert and sober

A tractor-trailer requires about 500 feet to stop from 60mph. Five hundred feet! Think about that the next time you see a truck with a large gap between itself and the car in front of it. We're trained to give one second's following time for every 10 feet of vehicle length, plus one more second if you're going faster than 40mph, plus another second in periods of reduced visibility like rain or night. My truck is a little over 70 feet long, so I realistically need eight to nine seconds following distance. (And how I get it is pretty simple: run the truck at 58mph unless I'm in Ohio, and then I run at 52.) Of that stopping distance, the first 32 feet after the driver applies the brakes are "application distance"--it takes a fraction of a second to pressurize the brake system, so for 32 feet I've got no brakes at all. (Given that, I see WAY too many truckers who don't maintain good following distance. Most of it's from your independent trucker population--fleet trucks can't go fast enough to get a serious tailgating thing on when traffic's running at high speed.)

If a driver is following the DOT's hours of service regulations, and most of us do because the fines are unbelievable and it's too easy to prove a violation with today's modern technology, this is what we're dealing with:

We have the 14 hour rule, the 11 hour rule, the 10 hour rule, the 70 hour rule and the 34 hour rule.

The 14 hour rule: You are allowed a driving window of 14 hours from the time you come on duty today. If you go on duty at 6am, you have to be stopped by 8pm. The window can span more than one day: if you started work at 6pm, at 8am you must have stopped driving. This clock does not stop, with one exception I'll talk about after I discuss the 11 hour rule.

The 11 hour rule: In those 14 hours, you are only allowed to drive for 11 hours. This clock can start and stop--if you drive for an hour, stop for three, drive for two hours, stop for three and drive for another hour, you've got four hours of driving. You can WORK after the 11 hours, but you can't drive on the highway. Moving the truck from the loading dock to a parking area so you can get your 10-hour break is considered "on duty not driving," as is fueling--you can't fuel a truck without driving it, but they consider anything within a block of the truck stop to be the truck stop itself because there are a LOT of truck stops out there where you have to leave the fuel island, go out the exit, then go back in the entrance to get to the parking area. If they considered going from the fuel island to the parking area to be driving, we'd all be screwed.

The 10 hour rule: In order to restart your 14 hour clock, you must take 10 consecutive hours off duty.

The 70 hour rule: You are allowed to work (combination of Line 3 "driving" and Line 4 "on duty not driving" hours) for 70 hours over the past 8 days. If you work 10 hours every day for seven consecutive days, on the eighth day you will have no hours left and will have to spend a day watching porn or something so you can get some hours back.

The 34 hour rule: You can reset your 70 hours any time you want (depending on freight volume, of course) by taking 34 consecutive hours off duty.

Hours aren't the problem in fatigue. The real problem's circadian rhythms. If you've programmed your body to work well during the day, if you have to pick up at 8pm and drop at 3am so the parts you're carrying will be ready for the assembly line workers at 7am you're going to be the Menace of the Public Highway--and, unfortunately, Just in Time manufacturing almost guarantees it's gonna happen.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

31. That's about the only time I speed too

I do what I can to stay out of their shadow. They cause of a WAY disproportionate number of fatal accidents and i seethe that nothing is done about it. They drive way too fast and too close, and are half asleep half the time. Or fiddling with their stereos or whatever - not driving safely is the botom line...

[cornermouse]

5. I don't know that it still applies but

if you're on a two lane highway and there's no other lane to move to, lightly tap (just enough to light up the tail lights but not enough to slow you down) the brakes 2 or 3 times if they're riding your back bumper. Most of the time they back off.

[soryang]

8. Oklahoma Turnpike- run by amateurs for profit

The Ok turnpike is characterized by overpriced tolls, excessive and poorly marked construction areas, and construction crews and police that fail to post adequate and timely notices of their activities. It is for some inexplicable reason the worst area of roads in the region.

Every time I am forced to drive through there, I say never again. It only seems to be getting worse.

It isnt helped by semi drivers who are so dumb they tailgate. Why is it they don't allow themselves a safe stopping distance? why is it that police don't enforce safe separation laws? Why do passenger vehicles pull directly in front of semis that try to leave a safe stopping distance? If you are being tailgated by a 40 ton semi below the speed limit, the police look the other way.

As the stimulus package takes hold, road construction which is very needed is going to increase. Much of the interstate road system is in a shambles. These accidents will increase as well.

[jmowreader]

11. I really wish I had the answer to one of your questions

"Why do passenger vehicles pull directly in front of semis that try to leave a safe stopping distance?"

That's a very good question, with exactly zero good answers. I wish I knew.

I can tell you what the logic of it is: I'm sitting in my rig with my preferred lead time, which is twelve seconds. I'm looking 15 seconds ahead--we're trained to do it. If I see something up ahead I don't want to get into, like a heavily-used exit or a lane closure, I can turn off my cruise control, slow down 5mph or so and get into a different lane before I'm even close to the problem. Unfortunately, while I'm doing all these things I've got thirty car drivers who think, "hey! I can jump in front of that guy and have all this space to drive in!" And before I know it, I've got twp seconds following distance.

I have two nice guidelines for y'all. First, if you need to get in front of a truck, try to get in front of a fleet driver. How to tell: Read the side of the truck. If someone's name is on there that's probably the only truck he has, and since he doesn't have a corporate policy requiring him to have a governor, he can go as fast as you can. If you see something like "Con-Way Trucking" or "PAM Transport" that's a fleet driver. He's got a governor, and it's probably set at 62mph. Fleet drivers have a little harder time tailgating because we can't keep up with traffic. He's also been indoctrinated as to the evils of tailgating because he's been through an orientation at his trucking company. (And with that, there are fleets named after their founders--John Christner and Willis Shaw come to mind.)

The other is: if you pass me and you can't see my windshield in your rear view mirror, you're still too close.

Now here's some scary shit: I've been tailgated by truck drivers WHILE I WAS IN MY TRUCK. I can just imagine the catastrophe that would result if Driver A with 12,000 pounds of pillows was going 58mph and got rear-ended by Driver B with 42,000 pounds of bottled water, which causes Driver A to jackknife and take out Driver C in the left lane who has 40,000 pounds of acetic anhydride and a tailgater with three kids in the back seat. (I picked these loads for a reason--acetic anhydride reacts violently with water.)

[triguy46]

22. As someone who drove 1050 miles (two 525 mile trips) yesterday....

On I-30, I-40, I-44 and I-20 here is my assessment of the obvious:

The Interstate system is too small for the volume of traffic being carried.

Speed is way, way fast, I drove 73-75 and spent most of the day staying out of the way.

No one group is to blame. We have careless inattentive drives of all sizes, colors, ages in all types of vehicles. More and more there are people driving that fast and talking on cell phones, texting.

I stayed out of trouble on this trip, with only 2 incidents that were of concern. And as mentioned my eyes jumped to mirror to see if I was to get it from behind.

Just to finish the story, had to drive to Monroe, La from Stillwater, OK to pick up the inlaws car that broke down last week and to return the rental they drove back up here.

[hedgehog]

25. I can't tell you how many times I've grimaced as a car up ahead

cut over too close in front of a truck. I've been ready to jam my brakes on many a time. I don't know how truckers have so few accidents!

[Joe Chi Minh]

21. Strangely, they have tolls on some French highways, I believe, but

when the gubmint wanted to introduce them here, so many people protested, the whole idea was knocked on the head.

[uncle ray]

12. i trust the average truck driver behind me much more than any ordinary driver.

fron the truck drivers vantage point, he can see what is in front of YOU better than you can. the driver of a passenger car is more likely to be drunk, drugged, tired, distracted, etc. than a professional driver. an extra 50 feet isn't going to do squat in the off chance you are rear ended by a truck.

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. I live in Northern Ontario - two lane highways, and the transports will tailgate me 10 feet away

.
.
.

I usually drive 5 cliks over the limit -

WHAT'S THEIR FUCKING PROBLEM??

I have no respect for most transport companies or their drivers.

I live in a small town where it is a 45 mile drive to the nearest city.

I can never make that round trip journey without at least a half a dozen truckers roaring up on my ass, and passing me sometimes in situations where I have to take the side of the road or do some serious braking to let them in before the top of a hill or a blind curve.

I do NOT like truckers . . .

Whenever I see a transport in my rear-view mirror

My stress level goes WAY up.

Thanx guys . . .

[DemBones DemBones]

26. That's what I hate: semis tailgating me on two-lane

highways when I'm doing five or ten miles over the speed limit already. They are really bad about it on one particular highway near me and it's a road which is clearly marked "no passing" for miles and miles, many curves and hills, not to mention places where the drop at the side of the road is ten feet or more.

[CANDO]

28. From a trucker's POV...

I drive a 62 mph fleet truck. If the average automobile driver can't at least go the speed limit on a secondary road, then why not pull onto the shoulder and let people who have places to go, get by you? I suspect there are those who just love to be "in control" of others stuck behind them. Just my hunch from past experiences. Also, if you are so terrified of the nasty big truck running up your arse, pull onto the shoulder and let him go. Or are you too proud to do so because "you'll show him who's in charge". I've been in situations pulling hills on secondary roads with no slow lane and have pulled as far onto the shoulder as I could in order for the cars behind me to slip on by. There are inconsiderate drivers out there from all walks of life. We've all seen them and been them once in a while. Why not use common sense and get out of people's way if your holding them up. You weren't in a hurry anyway, right?

[happyslug]

32. I have done that driving on my moped, and was almost killed a few times

My 80cc moped goes 45 on the flats, but drops to 20 on long hills. Thus I will pull over onto the berm to leave people pass me. The biggest problem I have found is when one person pass me, the second goes even slower OR speeds right by me. This can be a problem if you have heavy traffic. In Pennsylvania many, if not most of the secondary roads have very small (or non-existent) berms. If the last time the road was rebuilt (not repaved, but rebuilt) was before WWII, it had and stills have no berm. The state started to put a 2 foot berm on them if built or rebuilt in the 1950s, Six foot berms tend to be on roads built or rebuilt from the late 1960s onward (most rebuilt since the 1980s, for Pennsylvania ran out of money for its non-interstate highways in the late 1960s and did not pay off enough of its Highway debts till the 1980s to do anything but finish the Interstate system, and this is only do to the Interstate's 90% co-pay by the Federal Government).

Anyway, on the secondary roads with berms I have pulled over and the line of traffic passes me by, but none of them will leave me back in if the beam starts to end or otherwise become un-ridable on (and this is quite common on the roads with Two foot berms of the 1950s and 1960s). Sorry, I have found that when I have a long line of Traffic behind me, I am better off staying on the main lane then pulling over. I do NOT almost get run over when I have to reenter traffic if I NEVER go on the berm, and sooner or later I have to get back in traffic, for most secondary roads the berm ends when a rebuilt had ended, or something else has made in impossible to use the berm (i.e. rock, dead animal, parked car etc).

Riding on the berm is a good idea in theory, but in reality it is unsafe given present traffic levels (and this is why most states make it illegal).

[CANDO]

33. Adapting to situations at hand.

I see your point about no berm. Given that situation, nothing can rectify someone holding up a line of traffic. Some bit of patience is in order. I can't say I'd be too comfortable riding such a device as a 45 mph moped. To each his own, I guess.

I happen to be a driver who believes there are some people who just love being passive aggressive in that they get great enjoyment holding other people hostage behind them on our highways. It causes a great deal of road rage. And we all know who gets blamed for that. There needs to be a crack down on passive aggressive drivers who deliberately menace other drivers who happen to have a place to go and would like to get there.

[create.peace]

35. he said he was driving over the speed limit- reread his post! i agree with him nt

[CANDO]

37. Safest action on your part.

So some guy comes barreling down the road behind you, obviously speeding, what are you going to do? Act like Mr. Self Righteous traffic cop, tap your brakes and only enrage the person, thereby setting up an even more dangerous situation? Or pull over and let the person pass? I don't drive a fast vehicle, and I'm and so sick and tired of people being passive aggressive on our roads. If you are holding people up behind you, let them pass. It's such a simple concept really. But no, we must show others how in control we are of them if they have the misfortune of getting stuck behind us, right? Get off your high horse and get with it or get the hell out of the way. Let law enforcement deal with the speeders. You are not a traffic cop.

[create.peace]

39. The guy said he was already over the LIMIT!

You can't pull over on many 2 lane roads! I don't know where you live, but in Kansas there are many roads that there is not sufficient apron, let alone a place to pull over. If I am going the speed limit plus 5 i am not going to feel bad for driving with a few trucks behind me. You guys are just going to have to slow down! Travel on the Interstates when you want to speed! I am not passive aggressive.

[ConcernedCanuk]

36. TWO things - shoulders are not wide enough up here to do that

.
.
.

And secondly

even if I was the most incosiderate and stupid driver (which I am not)

what "from a trucker's POV" gives you the right to endanger the life of me and my passengers?

Most truckers have CB radios, most automobile drivers do not. If people that drive like I do are such a threat - call a cop?

IN 45 years of driving, I have never been stopped by a cop accusing me of driving too slow.

However,

there has never been a YEAR go by that all I can see in my rear-view mirror is the grill of a transport.

Your race to meet a deadline should not be a priority on the road.

The safety of all you encounter should be . .

something to ponder.

[CANDO]

38. You are not a threat to me.

Even in my "fast" 62mph hour truck, I get people out on the highway seemingly not in a hurry to get anywhere. Not that they should be in a hurry, but for dog's sake, please try to get to where you are going before the next millennium! Other people have lives to live, and speaking for myself, I'd rather not have you waste my time on this earth poking around behind you. This applies not only to me driving a truck, but also when I'm in my car. I often enjoy a ride in the country, just poking around back roads to see where they go. And when I see someone coming up behind, I immediately pull over and let them pass. Doesn't bother me or hurt my feelings in the least. Matter of fact, I don't want to hold them up because I'm just on a pleasure cruise. It's called being courteous.

[create.peace]

40. jeeze, neither of us were talking about driving slow....nt

[tom_paine]

15. Plus, making sure your hazard blinkers or on while at the tail end of a stoppage.

Although who knows, maybe the semi driver was nodding and it didn't matter.

But anytime I am at the end of a long line of cars, stopped in a place where there should be no stoppage or just on the other side of a blind curve, I click my hazards on, at least until someone comes in behind me.

[MindPilot]

20. I did that once and a CHP officer told me to turn them off.

Yelled at me on his PA as he drove by on the shoulder to get to the accident up ahead.

I thought cops liked flashing lights.

[Flaxbee]

18. it's true - I usually don't worry about stopping in time, because

I keep (as much as possible) many car lengths between me and the car in front. I always worry about the idiots on the cell phone or just generally with their heads up their asses driving behind me, though -- whether or not they even notice that traffic has come to a screeching halt.

[MindPilot]

19. Way too many trucks on the road

Seems like every fifth vehicle is a semi--rolling roadblocks--slowing traffic at on-ramps and creating a huge hazard anytime they have to climb a hill. Half the trucks I see look like they are going to start shedding parts at any moment. And anytime you hear the phrase "sig alert" it will almost always include the words "big rig".

I think if nothing else they should be kept off urban freeways during drive time.

[sandyj999]

23. Many semis can't go up hills because the companies have messed with the engines to save fuel.

So you are damned either way. My husband does a lot of hill driving through Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia etc. and is extremely frustrated because of what they have done to his tractor engine. He does not like people having to line up behind him and trying to get around him and is afraid it is an accident waiting to happen. He knows how aggravating it is to a four wheeler because at home that is what he drives. Unfortunately he can't tell or even suggest anything to his company.

[jmowreader]

27. The companies also bought engines that are too fucking small

I've got a 435hp engine, and it's pretty easy to tell the drivers on the road who have larger ones. Fuckin' Volvo guys with that 600-horse engine they sell can accelerate going up the side of a mountain. I've talked to Volvo guys, and almost without exception they all have that engine. If President Obama and our Democratic majority want to ease the congestion on our nation's highways, they can mandate that all new Class 8 tractors come with at least a 500-horse engine. It's not like it would add anything to the cost of the truck.

[CANDO]

29. Not going to happen.

The people would revolt if their shit wasn't on the store shelves. We all could wish for our personal highway utopia, but that's not the way things are. Give the trucks plenty of room and you'll be alright. Just remember, that trucker also drives a four wheeler when he's not working. I've driven trucks for over 20 years now, and I know what the average four wheeler is going to do before they know it. Couple million miles will do that to you.

[MadMaddie]

30. I am with you, I always look for an escape route

I try to avoid being caught on the side of big trucks.

All of those people never had a chance, they say the truck driver never even slowed down.