A tractor-trailer cargo spill in Mt. Pleasant left a roadway significantly damaged in June after molten aluminum set the asphalt on fire. Luckily, the driver of the truck escaped unharmed and no other vehicles were involved. Just one short month later, another devastating crash miraculously ended with no loss of life. Truck accidents almost always [...]
The National Highway Traffic Safety Association (NHTSA) recently proposed that trailer underride guards should be strong enough to protect passengers when a vehicle rear-ends a tractor-trailer at speeds of up to 35mph. It’s a bit of a mouthful to say aloud, but it’s less complicated than it sounds. Let’s break it down. What are underride [...]
Close to midnight on February 23, 2016, a 79 year-old man crashed his Dodge drove his truck through the front entrance of the Kingsport Walmart. It wasn’t intentional; the driver told the local police that he had meant to hit the brake after he pulled out of his parking spot, but hit the gas instead. [...]
Tractor-trailers, big rigs, 18-wheelers: call them whatever you want, but sharing the road with one can be scary. They’re big, lumbering motor vehicles that are slow to stop, have poor visibility on the sides, and have tires that can crash through your windshield if they blow out. But big rigs aren’t the only types of [...]
Stephanie Morgan, a big rig driver, witnessed a horrific accident in late October. The company she works for is one of many that employ an Onboard Safety Monitoring (OBSM) System. Her sudden braking to avoid the accident alerted a truck-safety monitoring company, which automatically notified her boss’s office in Omaha, Nebraska. The data from the [...]
Anyone who commutes to work on a major highway is familiar with scraps of tire debris scattered across the roadway. Occasionally, larger chunks of shredded tire belting stay in the middle of the lane, creating a minor traffic obstacle that can have major consequences. However, those little pieces of rubber are an indicator of a [...]
Exit 3 off Vietnam Veterans Boulevard in Hendersonville was closed on September 8 after an 18-wheeler transporting commercial batteries overturned. Early reports suggested that the truck’s cargo was not secured properly, and this may have contributed to the initial accident. The driver of the truck was injured in the accident and transported to Skyline Medical [...]
Big rigs are a necessary evil; they are a cost-effective way of distributing goods around our country. Unfortunately, we don’t do a particularly good job at regulating how they run. Laws, rules, and regulations vary state by state, and companies are excellent at manipulating these rules as well as federal safety laws to increase their [...]
Every drug affects every person differently. A new study from the University of Washington has found that those taking a sedative sleeping pill for the first time double their chances of being in a car accident for up to a full year. But it has long been recognized in the medical community that sleeping pills [...]
A horrific multi-car and truck crash in a construction site has claimed the lives of 6 people. According to WSMV, “Chattanooga police say a total of 9 vehicles and more than 15 people were involved in the wreck on Interstate 75 near Ooltewah.” New details are emerging about the crash, and the National Transportation Safety [...]
