2 Killed, at night, no Lights on truck !!!

first off prayers for the deceased and their families.

secondly why didn't the UPS driver see the truck BEFORE he had to evade it.......were his lights not on also or was he not paying attention......I've been on 441 in that area....and on darker roads.......something is not adding up here

 

Last week on I-81S a big rig was going down the highway at night with no lights on except his flashers...He obviously knew his lights didn't work and was using his flashers for visibility as people tried to reach him on the radio telling him to get off of the road...I was glad I was going Northbound...

 

Adds up pretty well. Local dump truck whose owner doesn't give a rip about maintenance or two guys who think it's cool to run "stealth" by moonlight plus one UPS driver who's always in a big ol' hurry hauling pups way too fast equals not enough reaction time.

I'm going off my own general observations of local dump/cement haulers and UPS in general, not facts from this particular case.

 

Yeah I gotta agree with you on the impatient ups guy and the stealth running.......it'll come out in the investigation as to what really occurred and I'm pretty sure it won't turn out well for the UPS driver

 

Older dump trucks are famous for dirty tail lights that the driver is too lazy to clean off. This is one instance where reflective tape is a must.

Looks like a single axle overloaded with rock too. I don't have a clue why he was running that early. Except for highway crews, most dumps need daylight to see what they are doing. Probably gonna do an illegal dump too.

You run outside DOT standards, stuff happens.

 

I wouldn't think UPS would be at fault. I was going down a road one dark night and only because I seen a couple distant lights disappear it caught my attention. I looked real hard and all I seen was black on black in the distance. As I got closer I seen that distant light disappear again. I started breaking her down and stopped about 40 feet from a boom truck laying on it's side in the middle of the road. The black bottom side facing me, you couldn't see anything until I was on top of it. If them distant lights weren't there, I'd probably would of hit him.

Luckily the driver was okay and the emergency vehicles showed up in a couple minutes. He swerved to miss a deer and lost it.

Another time on I-95 in CT about 3am, I was in the right lane and another trucker was passing me. He was about half way past me when we crested a little hill, there was a lady broke down in my lane with no lights. Luckily the truck driver stayed in it while I broke down and slid in behind him with only inches to spare. The dumb lady was just sitting in car. I called 911 was all I could do. I checked the news but didn't find anything, so I think she made it. I bet after me she got out, lol. I could see her big eyes in the rearview.

Moral of the stories, you can't see crap on a dark night.

 

Condo, in both examples you gave, you were able to stop and evade. You were on top of your game and not over-driving your abilities or your equipment. That's the difference between you and this UPS driver.

We are the professionals. We should be ready and able to evade others' stupidity, just like you were able to. I find it all too common that so many UPS and FedEx drivers lose control of their equipment even in the best conditions, yet refuse to slow down at all even in the worst conditions.

I reference the UPS truck sitting in the median at about the 250 yardstick on I-44 in Missouri when I was on my way east last time. Everybody else was slowing down, he was hauling tail. People who had just driven past that UPS sitting in the snow were making comments about my Swift wagon until I reminded them it wasn't my truck sitting there in the ditch.

 

I seen a UPS doubles west of Dragoon Mtn in flames. He peaked a hill and run in the back of a highway grader running in the granny lane. Don't ask me why??
The grader was in the median. Somehow the guy just suffered a broken arm and the UPS driver broke his leg. That was a wierd wreck. I got video of that somewhere's. I think on my desktop.