This Is What Happens When You Dont Check/Adjust/Fix Your Brakes...

Donners is very dangerous! I have seen so many bad wrecks up there. Stuff that will make you puke!:smt078It is dark up there and from all the snow plows it is very hard to see your lanes and the sidelines. Then you have on coming traffic with no median and the headlights are blinding because everything else is so dark. Oh yeah, and ice and snow and fog and bad drivers and animals and rain blah blah blah! BE CAREFUL guys up there this winter. One more thing, there are some good webcams on the internet from the weigh station up there. Helps let you know the conditions and what to expect before you go over.

 

Looks like he was starting to drift into the right lane, caught himself and swung back to the left so fast he caused his CG to go hard right to the point of no return...Tragic...

 

Happens all the time people dont respect passes even small ones can kill seen many on mt eagle wipeout and its a baby myself I dont think donner is the worst

 

I just went over Wolf Creek Pass after not having been over it for many years. They've really improved the road up there. Hats off to Colorado!

 

You are very right, I plow snow over Donner and I dont know how many times I have called tow trucks, highway patrol and ambulences working up there. Its the area I was taught to drive a truck.

 

With all due respect, the first clip just shows a box truck going into an escape area. There's nothing that tells us there was a brake problem. I suspect a driver problem in the form of inattention.

In the second case, there was nothing in the local press or from the California Highway Patrol that indicates 1) a brake issue (no brake lights until @24 in the clip) or 2) that the trainer was in the sleeper. People who've posted that clip have said "brakes/trainer in sleeper," but no one really knows, and there was nothing from CHP about either item. Unless you were involved in an accident, CHP will not release their report to you (I called them this morning to ask about this specific wreck), so we'll probably never really know. No matter how you look at it, this was a sad one. They all are, of course, but we don't usually watch two guys die in a truck. The driver was just going too fast (he almost clipped the CRE truck), and that happens all the time on that hill.

I live 25 miles from where this happened and my first trucking winter--1991--I ran from Reno/Sparks to the Bay Area and back almost every night. I chained up--doubles and 53-footers, loaded and empty--so many times I lost count. Truck speed in the chain-up areas is 25 mph; I felt safe. I never had a problem, but I'll admit to having more luck than brains. They closed I-80 a couple of times for white outs and I figured if it was that bad, I'd be glad to sit and wait. For bad winters, in my experience, Wyoming, eastern Oregon, Idaho, and everything east of The Buckeye were far worse. Still, even in good weather, Donner will help you get dead real quick.

 

They use this video during orientation at MVT.