Runaway Truck

Regardless of what led to the runaway situation, the driver did an admiral job of and keeping his cool and not getting anyone else involved.

 

I kept thinking of the line from the movie "Strange Brew" when Doug's van loses its brakes on the downgrade: "Well, no point in steering now!"

That trucker is going to need the Jaws of Life to extract the four square feet of vinyl that got sucked up into his heinie.......

 

Maybe he was trying to recreate the lyrics from "The Legend" by Jerry Reed!!

He left Atlanta back in '63
Haulin' him a load up to Tennessee
He hit Monteagle in the driving rain
So hard he couldn't even see the passing lane

Well he started downgrade when he lost a gear
He hit them brakes; found he had no air
The Monteagle grade is steep and long
And everybody that seen it thought the Bandit was gone

Well his truck jack-knifed; turned completely 'round
He was coming down backwards 'bout the speed of sound
A lot of folks seen him and they all say
He had his head out the window yelling "Clear the way!"

Well he got to the bottom safe and sound
Everybody asked Bandit how he made it down
He said folks when the truck picked up too much speed
I just run along beside it and drug my feet

 

I agree 200% with this post.

Compare what happened to this driver and the rookie that lost his life (and his trainer's life) in the infamous Donner Pass Rollover (Google it if you haven't seen it already). In the Donner Pass video the rookie could easily have made that turn at the speed he was going IF he wasn't "Yankee Doodle steering", yanking the wheel left and right and causing the trailer and load to start swaying back and forth. His last mistake was to hit the brakes as the trailer rocked to the right WHILE yanking the wheel to the left. He was dead within seconds of that final error.

Compare that to the nice and smooth rounded steering around the curves by the Mexican driver. Very smooth, no yanking, and he set up nice and straight into the suicide ramp. It's more impressive to me because he was driving a short wheelbase cabover.

While the Mexican driver in the OP video either made a mistake or experienced mechanical or electrical failure, he survived by applying his skill to manage the situation. Having the fuse or relay for the Jakes fail could have left him suddenly without Jakes, needing to downshift a few gears to bring it back under control. This happened to my brother coming down one those 10+ mile downgrades on I-15 in California, but I was in the sleeper berth and quickly got to the fuses in the glove compartment, started to pull the Jake fuse by wiggling it with my fingers, and the Jake suddenly engaged. After that we checked all the fuses and blew all the dust out if the fuse box.

 

for those interested I found the location.
Google Maps

I wanted to see what kind of roads led up to this situation.

3 miles ahead and 100 more feet drop of elevation of where he crashed there is a toll booth. He saved lives by crashing it.

 

Is it just me or did anyone else almost smell the smoke .. great job by cops trying to give him space to steer it once he was past point of no return

 

Spot on with that one sir !!

 

Scenes from the hit movie "Terminator " went racing through my mind.

 

"30 thousand pounds....of MASHED BANANAS!".......