Another semi involved accident

Been going over 3-4 times a week the last month or so. Plenty of trucks getting stopped high up on WB 70 just after coming out the tunnel. At Vail, they've been hanging out more from the bottom runaway down to the middle Vail exit, with less concentration on trucks. Week before last, it was triplets of bears on each, every afternoon when coming back. And as one would expect, the megas and the White Volvo Mafia were over-represented among those stopped.

Vail is much like Tehachapi, the flat spot in middle lulls the unwary into thinking they've made it down just before the bottom drops out. It's ridiculous how many trucks go down above the 45 mph limit, brakes applied well over 50% of the time. I'd guess that got this one, too. Let 'er fly at the bottom of that steep stretch before the flat, and never stood a chance of slowing it down for those last couple miles of steep grade before the ramp.

 

good.

 

And wishing he wasn't the reason he took the ramp. A guy doesn't have to be running a whole lot too fast when he starts off the top to get in trouble, and we have no idea if he had truck trouble.
Lots of folks sure eager to hang their fellow drivers.

 

There's one of these in Wyoming, used to go by it running loads of bentonite and sheetrock when I was a flatbedder. The video mentions there are three others like it in the U.S., but doesn't say where.

 

I wonder which does less damage to the truck?

 

Come on, now. You've been out here long enough to know it takes more than a bit of truck trouble to cause a runaway in a modern truck. It takes ignoring a lot of indications of trouble until you're in an unrecoverable situation.
I can easily bail off Vail 15 or 20 mph too fast bring it back to a controllable speed, as long as it's done immediately. One could even do it in neutral. But wait and it's trouble.

 

Exactly how many times have you look back saw a little wiff of smoke and decided Time to shut it down drop two or three gears good to go !!!!