Tanker fire on NJ pike

if he had a safer following distance it might have been a different outcome

 

Completely agreed by me. He would've avoided the hard brake and the trip to the shoulder. I almost did myself in on a curve I misjudged in 2013. I was still in my first week of driving for my railroad gig and I had tank duty. I came into the curve and realized I was going too fast, but remembered from the training video not to jump on the brakes.

Learned a big scary lesson.

 

I would have run the debris over.

 

I think the issue was avoiding the 4 wheelers that stopped short and swerved around the debris rather than the tanker trying to avoid it. He probably never even saw the mattresses and box springs, just the cars in front of him. I agree with the previous posts that he was probably following too closely. I'm just a student though so, my opinion doesn't mean much yet. Plus I wasn't there to see it. I crawled by 30-40 minutes afterwards.

 

Very good point, thanks for clarifying.

 

You can effectively change direction once with a tanker, in an emergency. Changing it twice in short order is ill advised. This driver did not have the time and/or distance to make the maneuvers he had to make.

He was following to close for the conditions.

 

I agree. From what I can see in the not so great dash cam video is that the mattress/box springs were laying in the 1st and 3rd lane creating a fast bottleneck into the middle lane that he was driving in. There could have been cars that struck the debris and were blindly getting to the shoulder as well. We all know that people tend to lock up the brakes and swerve without even thinking twice about who or what is behind and around them. If I had a dollar for every near wreck I have seen due to a small piece of cardboard drifting across the roadway....

He very well could have been maintaining a decent following distance before the three lanes of cars merged and stopped into one. I've lived in NJ all my life, let's face it, there is no such thing as a safe following distance. Safe drivers just get blown off the road here. Unfortunately, the only one who can tell us what really happened, is sadly no longer here to do so. He would probably still be alive if he maintained his lane and hit the car in front of him but he probably saved their life/lives by doing what he did. Either way I don't think that he left enough room for error and who knows what speed he was traveling at.

 

Update on story: and of course, the Douchebag van driver who put the mattresses on his roof is nowhere to be found.
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The driver of a tanker that flipped over and caught fire on the New Jersey Turnpike's western spur this afternoon is still "unaccounted for," while the vital roadway remains shut down, state police said.

All northbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike at mile marker 109.6 in Kearny have been closed and traffic is being diverted away from the entrance to the western spur, State Police Capt. Stephen Jones said.

"The roadway is going to be closed for some time," Jones said shortly before 5:30 p.m. this afternoon.

RELATED: Social media captures aftermath of N.J. Turnpike tanker fire

Meanwhile, heavy black smoke that was billowing above the area of mile marker 110 for nearly an hour and a half has died down following the accident, which involved a tanker and a Honda CRV, authorities said.

Jones said police are interviewing "numerous witnesses," including the driver of the the SUV -- a woman -- who suffered minor injuries in the crash. The fire was knocked down shortly before 4:50 p.m. -- about an hour and a half after it was report -- state police said.

A mattress and a box spring were visible near where the accident occurred. State police say they apparently came off a van that was also traveling in the area, but it's not clear if the tanker truck or any other vehicle struck the items. State police are currently investigating whether the mattress played a role in the accident and whether it came off another vehicle before or after the crash, Jones said.

Meanwhile, Joe Pentangelo, a spokesman for the Port Authority Police Department, said the agency's aircraft and firefighting (ARFF) truck has also responded to the scene. Pentangelo said the contents of the tanker are currently unknown, but whatever is in the truck is flammable, he said.

State Police Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Williams previously said the State Police's fatal accident unit has responded to the scene, along with the Northern Regional Medical Examiner Office.

 

The most recent report I have seen is 6 hours old mentions that they have to perform a medical exam to identify the driver and one report said that they were still trying to identify the truck. They will most likely do this through dental records if there are any. By saying that they are trying to identify the driver they probably know who it is but are waiting on definitive results. No mention of the company either but they are most likely witholding this info until loved ones are notified after positive ID. I don't know much about the process other than the small amount I learned from being a firefighter dealing with casualties. I know nothing about the LE and Coroner's side of it however, and I won't pretend like I do.