Safety: Preventable or not?
34 Commercial Carrier Journal December 2008 T'was a moonless midnight and frigid as a snowcone on North Dakota's rural sleet-slicked U.S. 2. An icy wind howled past the CB antenna vice-gripped to the West Coast mirror frame of John Doe's long-nose conventional twin-trailer rig. His discomfort was about to increase dramatically, smack-dab in the middle of a railroad overpass, one mile ahead. Black ice had caused Jimmy Joe Johnson's Toyota Highlander to spin-out and become stuck, partially blocking both lanes. Attempting to decelerate quickly from 55 mph and steer clear, Doe caused his rear trailer to overturn, jack-knifed, then watched in horror as his lead trailer fell on top of the SUV with an earth-shattering WHUMP! The shaken but miraculously uninjured Johnson materialized from the wreckage and graciously helped Doe out of his cab. Things rapidly turned from bad to worse when Doe and Johnson both noticed another set of headlights approach-ing. An ill-fated intercity bus arrived on the accident scene, braked hard, slid and crashed into the landing gear of Doe's overturned rear trailer! The bus windshield shattered, but thankfully nobody sustained injuries. Because Doe blamed everything on the black ice, he contested the preventable accident ruling of his fleet's safety director, and the National Safety Council's Accident Review Committee was asked to settle the dispute. NSC upheld the preventable rul-ing, noting that Doe should have reduced his speed in anticipation of the bridge being super-slick. Approaching an icy railroad overpass, John Doe noticed too late that an SUV had spun out directly in his path, and he was unable to stop his twin-trailer rig before colliding with it. An intercity bus then arrived on the accident scene and also couldn't stop in time, causing more chaos. Was this a preventable accident? safety Preventable or not: Doe's rig gets sandwiched Untitled-1 1 11/7/08 9:24:38 AM Write on Reader Service Card