Could Additional Runaway Truck Ramps Prevent Fatal California Accidents?

Could Additional Runaway Truck Ramps Prevent Fatal California Accidents?

Improperly maintained, defective, or overheated brakes can lead to failure, which is severely dangerous, especially on mountain roads, now the driver oftentimes loses government of the vehicle. An 80, 000 - pound big team hurtling down a steep road carries a high risk of serious injury or death for not only the driver but also the occupants of surrounding vehicles. Equipping precipitous roads and highways with runaway truck ramps is one way to prevent fatal accidents. A crash that recently occurred in California illustrates how adding additional ramps could take off traffic safety in the state, explains a local attorney.
In April 2009, a semi hauling cars on its twofold - decker trailer lost its brakes while approaching the final stretch of the Angeles Crest Highway, striking a car as it sped over the 210 Freeway, dragging it into a crowded intersection, and colliding with five more vehicles before hereafter booming into a bookstore in La Canada Flintridge. The accident claimed two lives and injured 12 people. The driver had ignored the sign prohibiting great trucks from march on the peak road, where surrounding peaks reach midpoint 8, 000 feet, as well as warnings from a passing motorist that his brakes were overheating, reported the Los Angeles Times. While the trucker plainly acted negligently, once his brakes failed, a runaway truck acclivity may have prevented the tragic accident.
Many horde in the city in which the truck accident occurred were enraged when they discovered that up until recently, the highway did have an escape sally. Deciding that conditions for trucks had sharpened on the road, the California Department of Transportation landscaped over the passage, replacing a crucial safety characteristic with fauna on an started scenic highway, explains an attorney in the state.
A common feature on many eminence roads, runaway truck ramps are inclined chill - ramps indiscernible with gravel or beige. When an out - of - jurisdiction truck climbs the incline, the gravitational pull causes the vehicle to decelerate, the friction created by the unmannerly drop in contributing to the corollary. Records from 1990 validate that 170 coextensive ramps occur in the United States, according to an romance in Car and Driver review.
Fortunately, just four months after the fatal accident in La Canada Flintridge, the Counsellor signed AB1361, officially banning commercial vehicles with three or more axles that dispute more than 9, 000 pounds from the Angeles Crest Highway. Drivers stimulated on the road now face a $1, 000 fine. To set out that truckers coalesce to the law, warning hieroglyphics were placed along the crossing.
A law prohibiting immense trucks from the stroll, however, will not lock up that another accident like the one that occurred in 2009 will materialize. Laws are sometimes broken, and if another truck driver were descending the highway with fault brakes, only an escape traveling would prevent a serious accident.