Two 18-wheelers collide (pics)

[Morella]

This was about as close to dying as I care to get for a while. We were going north on US 95, just past I-40, at 2am when a truck coming the other way veered into our lane. Tony swerved all of the way over onto the unpaved shoulder and managed to avoid a fatal head-on collision, but we were still hit. The other truck pushed the driver's mirror through the window, sending a shower of glass and mirror parts flying through the cab, and then broadsided our trailer and destroyed the tandems. His truck then swerved into terrain off the side of the road and flipped over. We thought he was dead, but he walked away. Tony was injured by broken glass, but aside from that, everyone is OK.

The other driver did not comprendo the English. He told police, in Spanish, that a front tire blew out, but they sure don't look blown to me. I think the asshole fell asleep while driving. The white truck is, of course, ours. The tow truck driver said that the brakes on the other truck were caged, which means that someone had disabled the emergency and parking brake systems. This is an extremely dangerous thing to do, and is normally done so that a trailer can be parked when there is a massive leak in the air brake system. This mutherfucker was driving it that way! There's more to say about people who have no business operating trucks, but I'll just show ya the pics.













-d

[mr x]

HOLLY CRAPPOLA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You guys are DAMN LUCKY TO BE ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Hearse_Guy]

holy fucking shit are you guys okay damn that looks bad i bet its worse in person holy fajita

[msc0nduct]

I am glad you guys are ok. Holy crap.

[Morella]

It is kinda freaky. We really weren't thinking about how close we came to dying until the highway patrol pointed it out. If Tony had done anything but swerve to the right, we would have all bought the farm...150,000# head-on would have made a mess. I was in the sleeper berth snoozing away, and I woke up because Tony was yelling expletives and the truck was running off the road, then there was the loud bang, and it felt like the bottom was being torn out of the truck. I got tossed around like a rag doll for a while. I put my arms up in front of my face, dove into a pillow and braced for impact, but we eventually stopped. The truck is a total mess inside, but it's driveable to a body shop if we can get a new mirror and window glass. Tony is picking pieces of glass out of his skin. Ewwww.

There's no disputing that we were lucky, all things considered. I even consider it lucky that the other truck was destroyed without causing any inuries, because I think that it was in unsafe condition, and now it's off of the road. Hopefully we will be back on the road in a few days, after all of the paperwork, repairs, and paperwork. Hanging around a hotel in Nowhereseville is not my idea of a good time, and we're losing money!

-d

[Boogeyman Con Carne]

Do you have insurance to cover your pay and expenses if he doesn't have insurance to cover it? DID he have insurance?

[Psychoholic]

Holy fuck! I'm glad you guys are OK!

Hombre's tire doesn't look blown out - did the cop call bullshit at least? The insurance adjuster? Anybody? How did he get a CDL without being able to speak English!!!???

[Morella]

Do you have insurance to cover your pay and expenses if he doesn't have insurance to cover it?

No, if we don't get it back from the accident settlement, we just have to eat it. That's the nature of the beast...when the truck is rolling and we're hooking one load after another, we make an obscene amount of money, but when it's down, the expenses start sucking it back out of our wallets. Technically, we're not even employed. We get a settlement instead of paychecks, and when we need money, we make an owner equity draw on the business account. If we make a negative amount of money one week, they take money out of our maintenance fund to make our settlement equal zero. This will get better in a few months when we have the tractor paid off, like a $450/week pay raise.

We still don't know whether or not the other driver was insured, because California Highway Patrol (CHiPs?) has a strange policy about traffic accidents. They separate the parties involved, and take information from one at a time. This information is then available only to law enforcement and insurance companies. They say that they do this to keep people from getting pissed off and hurting each other, but it seems to me that things are set up so that lawyers have to be involved with everything. The carrier that we're contracted with has a claims department, and they're supposed to be sending someone out here with a mirror and a window, so that we can patch up the tractor and get it home and to a body shop. The trailer belongs to them, so that's not our problem. Whether we will get anything at all from an insurance settlement, I don't know. I'm not counting on it. It seems to me that Tony should get some compensation for being peppered with broken glass, and his hand that is messed up, but he is not going to make a claim for it.

-d

[Morella]

How did he get a CDL without being able to speak English!!!???

Now that is a very good question. The people who are running around criticizing our (AZ) new illegal immigrant law have no idea what is going on in the Southwest. The United States is becoming Mexico. There are entire towns in the US where almost nobody speaks English. Even in the big cities, there are ways to get around requirements to understand English. The truck driving institute that I went to has night classes taught in Spanish, and they do the DOT exams in Spanish, so they are releasing a whole generation of drivers who are unable to read fucking road signs! The law clearly states that to get a CDL, you have to be able to speak English, and we are required to be familiar with the federal motor carrier regulations, which are published only in English, but anyone who tries to enforce the law is labeled a racist and ignored. My guess is that if the DOT went after Julio Fruit Transport, or whatever the name of that trucking company was, for safety violations, they would be accused of racism, no matter how bad the condition of their equipment.

This is the sort of thing that our governor, and the governors of several of other states, have been pleading with the federal government to do something about. It's not just transportation, it's kidnapping, smuggling, robbery, theft...totally out of control. There are probably people here who will laugh when I say this, but Mexico is taking over the United States, from within. Our own government considers anyone who doesn't curl up into a ball of white guilt and flagellate himself over illegal immigration to be a "racist", and governments of other countries are either laughing at us, or shaking their heads in disgust. Most of them are spazzing out over the world economy, which depends on the economy of Capitalist nations, and this spazzing out has the effect of making the economic situation worse.

Well, shit, I'm rambling on again, aren't I? There isn't much else to do in a hotel room, I'm afraid. If I were an airline pilot, I would go to the nearest bar and get drunk, but truck drivers aren't supposed to do that.

-d

[Otto Baron]

There are two big reasons that the federal Governmemt want's Illegals to come to this country, and is dragging their heals on solving what they don't see as a problem. Companies like Slave labor, and Politicians want uneducated voters who they can bribe with social spending. Useful idiots, who think illegals are being victimized, care little for blacks and other minorities who depend on many of the jobs and the housing that the illegals are denying them access to. Yet when was the last time the media ever did stories about increasing friction between blacks and illegals?

[Morella]

Yet when was the last time the media ever did stories about increasing friction between blacks and illegals?

The "white folks" are getting stupid, and everyone else is getting smarter. Mexicans are not all working for big business. They're opening small businesses of their own in the US, such as this trucking business, and they're skirting the laws that Americans have put in place to make businesses operate fairly, and safely. They don't hate white people, and they're not out to get anyone, they just don't give a shit, and that is what makes them dangerous. I'm all for giving anyone a fair chance, but it needs to be fair. They need to obey all of our laws, so that they are not a menace to us.

-d