Could Additional Runaway Truck Ramps Prevent Fatal California Accidents?
Improperly maintained, defective, or overheated brakes can lead to failure, which is terribly dangerous, especially on height roads, for the driver ofttimes loses charge of the vehicle. An 80, 000 - pound big club hurtling down a steep road carries a high risk of serious injury or death for not only the driver but also the occupants of surrounding vehicles. Equipping precipitous roads and highways with runaway truck ramps is one way to prevent fatal accidents. A crash that recently occurred in California illustrates how adding additional ramps could skyrocket traffic safety in the state, explains a local attorney.
In April 2009, a semi hauling cars on its coupled - decker trailer lost its brakes while approaching the final stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway, striking a car as it sped over the 210 Freeway, dragging it into a crowded intersection, and colliding with five more vehicles before presently obstreperous into a bookstore in La Canada Flintridge. The accident claimed two lives and injured 12 people. The driver had ignored the sign prohibiting immense trucks from quest on the mountain road, where surrounding peaks reach midpoint 8, 000 feet, as well as warnings from a passing motorist that his brakes were overheating, reported the Los Angeles Times. While the trucker plainly acted negligently, once his brakes failed, a runaway truck incline may have prevented the tragic accident.
Many tribe in the city in which the truck accident occurred were enraged when they discovered that up until recently, the highway did have an escape traverse. Deciding that conditions for trucks had preferable on the road, the California Department of Transportation landscaped over the passageway, replacing a crucial safety facet with fauna on an ad hoc scenic highway, explains an attorney in the state.
A common side on many height roads, runaway truck ramps are inclined take - ramps abstruse with gravel or buff. When an out - of - ascendancy truck climbs the incline, the gravitational pull causes the vehicle to decelerate, the friction created by the inconsiderate occur contributing to the end. Records from 1990 establish that 170 cognate ramps manifest in the United States, according to an biography in Car and Driver diary.
Fortunately, just four months after the fatal accident in La Canada Flintridge, the Conductor signed AB1361, officially banning commercial vehicles with three or more axles that discept more than 9, 000 pounds from the Angeles Crest Highway. Drivers attracted on the road now face a $1, 000 fine. To insure that truckers associate to the law, warning code were placed along the safari.
A law prohibiting big trucks from the travel, however, will not ice that another accident like the one that occurred in 2009 will transpire. Laws are sometimes broken, and if another truck driver were descending the highway with oversight brakes, only an escape round would prevent a serious accident.
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