Getting Back on the Road from the Shoulder....

A common theme and complaint I have seen in hundreds of threads on TTR over the years is that tendency of drivers to park on the shoulder inches from live traffic, then when rejoining the highway, they often creep right out into the live traffic lane at a slow speed rather than build up speed along the shoulder first.

. I came up on a wreck about a month ago where this had happened. A trucker had pulled over just before a freeway exit to presumably 'check his tires'. When it came time to go, he drove through the gore point between the exit and the freeway right into the path of another trucker who was clipping along about 77 miles per hour in the slow lane.

I know most of us will slow down or get over one lane for vehicles on the shoulder just to give some extra added safety, but perhaps the driver could not get over as there might have been a car or another truck beside him. Nonetheless, he rear ended the tractor/trailer that was pulling off the shoulder with such speed differential and force that the front of his truck was totally unrecognizable. His Cummins engine was actually about 35 feet out in front of the wreck still steaming as it lay in the median. This tells me that the driver actually did try to vector into the fast lane to avoid, albeit, too late... The driver did not have a seat belt on, and as he lay across his steering wheel with his arms up shielding him, told his final sad story.

This totally didn't have to happen at all. The driver could have taken the exit and parked fully over 10 feet from live traffic and when it was time to go, continue to the onramp and get up to speed like all the other traffic does. Or he could have simply looked in his mirror and waited a few seconds for an opening behind him where no traffic was coming for a long ways off. This happened on I-70 in Utah eastbound about mm 182, so a pretty rural area. Straight dry flat road in the middle of summer. Why the driver chose that spot to pull over to wet his tires rather than the truck stops about 20 miles prior is baffling.

We often feel that our professional skills and years of safe time in the saddle will somehow protect us with that 'it will never happen to me...' thought process. It truly is a very dangerous job that we do. Every past safe mile you have laid down has no impact on the safely of the next mile. It can all come to an abrupt end in an instant with just an inattentive driver pulling off the shoulder at three miles per hour right into your path . Stay safe out there truckers...

 

For one, it is just too graphic, but also, the admins have told me not to post video content here ever again.

 

The driver who pulled off the shoulder was of Indian origin I believe, neither he nor his team mate were injured.