FedEx and a bus crash in Cali

I live in the area of the crash--
News at 5:00pm said that " NTSB has NOT discovered
any evidence of a fire on the FED-EX truck prior
to the crash". That was today --4/13....
they may never know the real reason for the crash
as BOTH Fed-Ex truck and Bus were destroyed in
the fire.

 

From what I have read/heard the car side swiped by the fed-ex was on the same side of the road as the bus. The driver of that car is saying the truck was on fire before it hit them.

 

It may be that with the late afternoon sunlight the driver of the Nissan may simply have seen the sun reflected in glass. There's been two versions of that witnesses description of the fire I've read. One version is the fire was INSIDE the cab with flames coming out. The other version is that the bottom of the tractor was on fire, behind the cab.

Recent LA Times story has another eyewitness that didn't see any fire, and tells a more detailed story of how the Fedex truck lost control:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/...vidence-20140413,0,896542.story#axzz2ypPjGkiY

Note the following:

One of the most detailed accounts of the crash came from Householder, whose mobile home faces the southbound lanes of the interstate, where the FedEx truck was traveling. He said it was about 5:30 Thursday evening when he heard the screech of tires.


He looked up to see two cars braking hard as the FedEx truck tried to cut in front of them and into the fast lane. The truck driver appeared to have no room to get back to the slow lane because of the presence of a red van, Householder, a stay-at-home father of three, told The Times. He speculated that the truck driver thought he could bring the big rig back under control in the fast lane or median.


"It looked like he tried straightening out going into the fast lane, but all his weight and momentum shot him straight across the median," said Householder, who said he shared his account with the California Highway Patrol. "And he collided with that tour bus. ... It was very ugly."

This eyewitness account makes sense. Trucker approaching a slow moving van, then trying to snap over in a quick lane change in front of approaching vehicles. A quick lane change with doubles is a recipe for serious "wiggle waggle" and loss of control.

If this account proves correct, then this is reckless driving: tailgating the van and cutting off approaching cars in the hammer lane. Must have been horrifying the moment the Fedex driver realized that 10 seconds he was trying to save was going to cost total loss of control.

 

Did he have a hazmat load and why didn't the bus try to swerve oyt of the way...why didn't anyone see the truck coming

 

A few stories have reported the NTSB has already determined the bus driver applied brakes and tried to swerve to the right before impact, with a total of 145 feet of skid marks.

It is very difficult for anyone to have seen the Fedex truck before it burst through the trees that California planted in the median (presumably to reduce headlight glare and provide hiding spots for CHP to hang out for their speed traps). The Fedex truck plowed through the trees and "burst" out into the southbound lanes. The driver of the Nissan reported she barely had time to turn the wheel to the right to avoid a head on collision and their car got clipped along the driver's side.

 

Don't really care what the NTSB has to say. CHP's MAIT truly is the cream of the crop and they will release a fair & thorough report after completing the investigation. Just don't expect to see it for another 6 months.

 

At the end of all this speculation, it will be at least 6 months before we hear about what happen from any agencies. At the end of it all, no driver, Fed-Ex, Swift, large or small carrier every had a driver start of a day and say, " i'am going to cause a wreak today." Nobody wants to see this happen, families lost members, Fathers are not with there children, children are not with there parents, Nothing will change this. But for our industry to turn each other is just more of a black eye then we need. The driver of this truck lost his life! He would have never wanted this to happen, more then this, he was a father and husband. He would have never wanted to end the life's of others that where about to just start their life's. Something horrible went wrong in my opinion, more then driver error! To assault or bad mouth the driver, or his company is just wrong. Lets all let the experts do their job, then make an opinion, I have my personal opinion, but let's see what happen first.

hold your family, friends, love ones a little more next time you see them, life is not a given, it's the greatest gift! 10 people no longed have that choice, and not one of them would of ever wanted this to happen, even the the big bad truck driver. This could have been any one of us!

 

The Fed Ex truck's data logger was destroyed, but the one from the bus was recovered.

Time to see if all that regulation going into black-boxes for CMV's will bear any fruit.

 

Really? "Experts"??? These "experts are the ones who gave us the latest HOS rules that most would argue have made more drivers feel compelled to drive more hours during which they are the most tired and prone to doze, and making it very difficult to impossible to get a 70 restart, compounding the previous problem. Truck accident rates are up lately, not down. These "experts" are the ones who look for any issues over there to make more laws and restrictions over here (i.e. provide answers for problems that don't exist while letting other issues go un-responded to)

Any company who EVERY truck driver will argue is responsible for far more then their fair share of snow/ice crashes is worthy of any criticism they may receive. Next winter, if I see fewer then 30 Fedex trucks in the median following snow storms, I MIGHT think about cutting them a little slack. In the mean time, they are part of the problem as far as I am concerned and need to be dealt with. Rant over.

 

If what the eye-witness account said is true and the Fed-ex was moving into the left lane to avoid a rear-end collison and lost control.....

Several people died as a result of his decision to pull left, when he could have pulled right and rolled to the emergency lane or shoulder.

One of the first things we were told long ago is be prepared to ditch your truck to avoid killing momma and the kids in the 4-wheelers.....

I realize that instincts would kick in and a driver will try to fix a bad situation...unfortunately that resulted in loss of life, both his and the others.

Rolling a truck to the right could have saved him and the others if he had made that choice to ditch the truck to the right , rolling it into a rail or flipping it on its side along the shoulder.

This course of action requires nerves a steel and big-brass-balls....knowing you're going to skuttle it to save another human life over your own.....