Horrible crash in Lakewood CO, I70 closed both directions. 12 vehicles 4 semi huge fire

When a situation is so stupid as to defy your own believing or even accepting the reality, the best ones do not panic or lose it. They go down making decisions. One of them should be to stop if at all possible. A trainer told me once if the merry go around had a run away with you on it you want off pronto or get it stopped. It's a choice. Not choosing anything probably will get people hurt or killed.

Believe me, Ive been in situations where I would take a moment and say.. eff... now what?! I don't believe this. But believe it. Then find a way to solve this. Fast.

Ive always known all my life from my near death experiences like the meat plant in Fort Collins being a moment from being crushed into the wash bay by my own trailer... that if I can see something coming, I can do something about it. What will get me in the end is something I never see coming.

There have been times instinct says to do this and forget about the rest of the BS, just do it now. *Shrugs. Worked out pretty well.

 

Honestly, yeah, I think once that driver passed the runaway ramp with no brakes, he had no good choices. Personally I think if I ever find myself in that situation, I'll try to run it up a hill to my right, if I can find one. Or run it into a rock wall.

Here's some idea of what it would look like. Imagine heavier traffic and traveling 80 mph with no brakes and making a choice. These are all after the runaway ramp but before C-470.

This kind of sums up most of your choices after the runaway ramp: up a steep hill where you'll probably roll or hit oncoming traffic, or into a guard rail that will bounce you back sideways into traffic -- or break and let you go 300 feet down a very, very steep hill.


This is probably the best looking place I found quickly, uphill off to the left, hope you don't roll and the guard rail keeps your 80 mph truck from going head on into the oncoming westbound traffic.


Maybe up the rock wall? No, too steep, you'll just roll....?


Hmm, how about just a quarter second later further down the road, off to the right before you hit the guard rail?


OOOOOPS!! This is looking from the other direction to where you go after you get past the guard rail!


There are no good choices. He should have taken the ramp.

 

That wide shoulder with the gravel is the runaway ramp. The ramp starts about a quarter mile further up the hill. It's a downhill ramp of deep gravel with some barriers at the end. About every tenth time I go past the entrance, I have to blast my air horn at some moron in a car parked at the entrance eating a sandwich and texting.

I wish I was kidding about that.

 

Rolling aint so bad if you can engineer it. I liked that nice angled hill to the left to the almost invisible gaurd rail up top. In the second image from the top you uploaded. The truck would probably want to lie down on the right side if carefully angled to do so. Not ideal but that would be where I end up.

The angled man made blasted rock face on the right is less appealing but with the same concept I can probably make it lie down on the left side. But hopefully not going onto the roof and over. That's not a good idea. Going against it to go uphill is going to hurt once that nose and engine digs in and that wood stabs the cab.

I have actually run off highway two times in my life, both times I managed to get it back onto pavement with horsepower to hold her steady at torque before having to hit the banking further on. It's really a wake up call better than morning coffee. But I got away with it those times without having damage that I know of to the truck. Poor thing.

 

I was 22 when I started and drove like a grandma in a truck with no jakes, just an untrained driver or something else in this incident.

 

Ive had other drivers on mount eagle say #### IT GRANDPA COME ON... run with me watch what I do you numbnuts... sheesh you pups... I was doing maybe 12 off the top of that brake check on my first down. Not ideal.

He was old enough to be my grandpa. Literally watched what he did and copied cat him all the way down. The brief burst of smoke showing his downshifts. (That was long before emissions BS, when smoke was useful)

 

Ive had the opposite of solving problems when trying to do something that turns out to be really flat STUPID.

Once when burning vegatation at the house as we normally did it would not burn. So out came the 5 gallon gasoline can. krinkle around the whole pile 20 feet across 5 high.

Light match...

Even today sitting here I had to laugh at myself for being burned up just about. I got about two steps away, just far enough from Mr BOOM that just about burned me up.

Mankind is capable of very stupid stuff. Sometimes I think even God must have a laugh at our expense.

 

23 is too young. Had he waited until he was older and wiser and more mature, who knows? maybe he’d of drove millions of miles accident free.

I know as I aged I grew wiser and maturer.

 

Too young for I-70 or Donner etc.

When I was that age, I was told I wont be getting loads across there until I had a few more years yet. It was the way companies managed the risk.

Now if you were born and raised on side of the world. Have at it, you know more than I ever will learn.

I was thinking about that Horsecamp Grade US33 west of Harrisonburg, the write up I did for another driver. I would not send this kid onto that kind of a road. Even today thinking about that US 33 I have a strange conflict. Part of me wants to run it heavy and a part of me says you stupid special or something? FORGET IT. There is a word for that goes by "Fatal Attraction"

Maybe that's why God made the rockies so big that it takes all day to get it. If not all week. There is one point where its a place called Emigrant Gap and is on the west coast. There is a little overlook there almost near the top. Sign there said settlers used ropes to hold wagons from tree to tree. I don't know what they were thinking on that 40% slope a thousand five hundred all the way down to that valley. I guess if you want to get down bad enough...

 

I've often thought that there's no way I would have survived if I'd started driving big trucks in my 20s. I was way too impatient and foolish. And hauling chemicals? Nope, I'd be dead, and probably would've hurt or killed others in the process.