Truck blown over and crushes Wy Troopers car

It does not matter what it had in the box. You could be loaded to the max and still get blown over to me. It at the time was a no high profile high wind warned area so that to me says, get into a truckstop and STAY there until the warnings for wind go away.

I was just reading about the Chesapeake Bay BRidge Tunnel System who had a loaded 18 wheeler go through the rail during a nor'easter a few days ago and was rescued by a Navy Helicopter in training at night in rough seas but driver died on the way to Hospital. The bridge was under a tiered warning system which banned all trucks not loaded with a minimum of 30,000 pounds in the box. Ive used CBBT and consider the winds in storms a situation not to be fooled with.

Shifting to wyoming, I cannot tell you how many nights I spent in the Petro either on the 80 east end or the fort bridger/odgen area waiting for winter wind warnings to die down. Anyone who has not been into WY does not understand that there is nothing up that way to stop winds from knocking you down. Nothing. Ive spent many miles using my load as a shield to help defend a doubles or something from getting blown over.

 

I'm just trying to determine if the driver disobeyed a lawful order as per the sign message. To use your logic, then it should be a nationwide law that ALL trucks must park when the wind gusts exceed 40 MPH, regardless of their weight

 

Not so much a LAW, but common sense. A professional Trucker knows that there is enough surface area in vans and other trucks (MADE WORSE by the recent years of adding air foils below the floors of trailers for fuel mileage....) and easier to tip. If I was a fleet I would not install foils under there. They are more trouble than they are worth.

Ive spent many a happy night eating dinner around the USA for a few hours and taking in a movie with many others waiting for winds to die down in storms. In those kinds of situations Dispatch is usually wise to shut up and reschedule the appointment.

Maybe I am a little bit heavy and unbending about that, it's just that when nature kicks up a storm enough to tip trucks, find a place and get a nap, laundry or something done while waiting for that to settle. It's not so bad. Mashing a police car is bad.

 

You can thank the great state of California for that mess. We used run all of our trailers without foils/side skirts because of our intermodal operations. But recently one of our trailers got busted at a DOT checkpoint and the company was issued a $1000 fine. So now all of new and recent trailers are getting them installed.smh

 

As a followup to this, I get the text alerts from Wyo., they wind restriction went up the day before and was still in effect when this accident happened.

 

Don't they have different levels? (advisory, closure, etc) I know one is "Closed to Light High-Profile Vehicles" But I thought they had a lesser "Advisory" condition, too.

They don't provide a definition of what "light" is or how they might enforce this or check for clearance to travel.

 

IIRC Wyoming doesn't define "light". I don't think they want the liability. If you don't get blown over, you aren't light. If you get blown over, you are light.

 

STexan makes a good suggestion.

I don't recall Wyoming making any difference in weight.

You are not going to halt thousands of truckers rolling across one state because the winds are a wee bit too high.

Even if the option is there for a State to simply ban all trucking because it's breezy would incur the wrath of Companies nationwide.

 

Intermodal too?

Now I know someone has gone overboard in California. A box, a chassis to put it on and now a foil to keep on that chassis. I think not. I draw the line at intermodal. I should know I used to haul the things in another life time. Foils are the least of the worries when you consider a box loaded to 100K or so gross weight. There is not enough Foils in the free world to cover such a fuel burning brick of weight.