I saw this accident yesterday......... from the drivers seat of the truck involved. I was doing my second trip of three for the day to the landfill I passed by a fire department dealing with a small hay fire that someone tried to burn some hay but it was still too wet and just smoldered for 2 days. I glanced over at them for 1 or 2 seconds and then back to the road to find a car stopped in front of me at an intersection waiting to turn left. I have no clue where this car came from. The only thing I can think of is they pulled out of a trailer park driveway that is right near the intersection. Unfortunately I'll never know. I can't remember much leading up to it. The witnesses say they saw them stop very fast to make the turn and that there wasn't any oncoming traffic so nobody know why they were just sitting there.
So anyways here's this car stopped and I definitely can't stop at all. To avoid nailing them I had to jerk the wheel hard to the right, I missed them by inches and then had to counter steer to the left to avoid hitting a electric pole head on and attempt to recover. The shoulder drop off was too steep and over she went. As it was laying over I still had a lot of forward momentum and the trailer caught the pole and snapped it 13 feet from the ground. The cab slammed the ground hard and dug into the dirt and stopped.
Since the fire department was right down the street I blew the air horns to give them some idea that I was ok. The truck ended up about 3/4 upside down, not quite all the way. So I was dangling there by the seat belt and my foot was stuck against the accelerator because the firewall caved in and pushed the center console against my foot and the accelerator. The firefighters and medical crew were right there quick. I wasn't in any pain or bleeding so I told them I felt It would be better if I tried to get out after I freed my foot ( which I had been trying to to the whole time I was talking to them). I finally got my foot unstuck and unlatched the seat belt, dropped and then climbed out. It took about 10 minutes.
I was lucky and didn't get a scratch on me. Just some bruising, mostly from trying to get out and the seat belt. So there's my truck on it's side, trash all over the place, power lines dangling, my full tanks of fuel leaking all over. In the end it turned out ok. I avoided possibly killing some people in the car, I didn't get hurt, nobody else got hurt, and the trailer that is worth way more than the truck in fine. It happened about 10:00 in the morning and we spent until 5:00 pm cleaning everything up and finished up this morning digging out and replacing the contaminated soil from the fuel.
Since there were many witnesses that told the cop I did what I had to do to avoid the car I only got a ticket for speed not reasonable/special hazard. DOT checked the truck over and found no violations which my company was real happy about. They also said they don't feel they need to fire me because it was simply just an accident and it could have been a hell of a lot worse. However it's up to the insurance company whether I'll continue to drive for them or not.
So anyways as much as I expect the unexpected the one time I let my guard down it happened. All it took was a second. I wasn't staring at the firefighters, just a 1 or 2 second glance and the right timing it can turn into a bad day. :? :?
Expect the unexpected
