Yesterday, in the early morning, an accident shut down Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge, LA for the entire day and made traffic in the city unbearable - I'm talking taking 2 hours to go 4 miles in the city. One truck rear ended another truck because he was following him to closely as the front truck was stopping for an accident that had started in front of him. The truck that got rear ended just so happened to be fully loaded with Isobutane, a highly flammable chemical which leaked all over the road causing state police and hazmat crews to wait until midnight to burn off the chemical because it was impossible to transport the liquid or offload it because the valves were damaged when the tanker was rear ended.
All of this could have been avoided had the truck not been tailgating the other tanker. Stupid mistake that could have cost lives. Instead it just caused a traffic nightmare in Baton Rouge for the entire day, wasted resources as police had to stand and reroute traffic all day instead of patrolling, and making local drivers like myself late for practically every delivery due to the congestion in the streets.
Moral of the story - DON'T TAILGATE!!! Nobody cares if other super truckers are doing it - it's going to take you a long distance to stop your rig, and is it really worth your job or your life just to be on someones bumper? I see it all day long from both cars and trucks. Back off and don't let something like this happen to you!
Just imagine if this had happened and that truck exploded during the day - that was a controlled explosion. Had something happened that tanker blew up uncontrolled, the Mall of Louisiana is not even a block away, and Baton Rouge General Hospital and a couple of hotels were a block away. All had to be evacuated along with the residential areas near the interstate. Could have been a much worse disaster all because a truck didn't leave enough stopping distance between he and a hazmat truck. STUPID!
Here's a link to the video of DOT blowing up the truck.
A lesson for both new and experienced drivers
Discussion in 'Questions From New Drivers' started by Wookie Dude, Aug 23, 2012.
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