TC accident CA99 in Bakersfield

[discovery4us]

Prayers for this couple and their family. Happened yesterday but I have not seen any updates.


Put this here since it involved a TC but moderators feel free to move it.



http://www.kget.com/news/two-people-hospitalized-following-multi-vehicle-crash-expect-delays-on-highway-99/1094368159http://www.kget.com/news/two-people-hospitalized-following-multi-vehicle-crash-expect-delays-on-high...

[Passage0ftime]

mkirsch wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
Who in his right mind would slam on the brakes in front of a big rig?

Lots of people NOT in their right mind would slam on their brakes in front of a tractor trailer, though. Idiots are not in their right mind. They don't have a right mind. Lots of idiots on the road. Owning a TC does not preclude one from being an idiot, sorry to say.

When making a decision to run into the vehicle stopped or slowing drastically or potentially being rear-ended, most will hit the brakes rather than hit the guy in front at speed. Given the choice I would be on my brakes to do my best not to injure the people in front of me. If the camper had hit a vehicle in front of them, they would have stopped just as suddenly, and still be struck by the semi. Were they unaware of the factors making that a dangerous piece of road? Maybe, maybe not. Was the trucker aware of the potential dangers, again maybe, maybe not but as a professional, he should have been, and understanding the unpredictability of civilian drivers should have been anticipating this possibility by slowing himself (it was an exit ramp if I read correctly)

I always drive with the assumption that the other fellow that 4 way stop is going to run it. The fool that passes you and 90 to yank over four lanes to take an exit will do it. I taught 5 daughters how to drive. The first thing I always tell them as soon as they start becoming aware of traffic and driving is "never bet against stupid, you will lose every time." Drive prudently, assume the unexpected and always remember being late is never as bad as never showing up again.

[Kayteg1]

When we might never learn what really happen, discovery4us confirmed my observation that the accident happen north of reported cross street, what would make it end of merging lane.
To shade some light how crazy that stretch of freeway is:
Highway 58 is San Francisco - Las Vegas route. It crosses freeway 99, but not in straight intersection, but by merging for 2-3 miles.
So drivers going on 58 toward Vegas have to enter 99 on uphill ramp, merge with 80+ mph traffic, only to hit brakes and exit into single lane couple miles later.
99 is 4 or 5 lanes on this stretch, but lot of semitrucks not going much slower than quoted 80 mph.
That said, I drive that route for 30 years and avoid west side of 58, going few miles north to 46 via Wasco. Couple miles longer, but I don't have adrenaline coming out my ears.
It is just too bad elderly campers ended there at wrong time.

[burningman]

I have no idea what happened in this crash, but to answer the question “who in their right mind slams on their brakes in front of a big rig”, I can personally tell you no one in their right mind does but a whole lot of people do it!!
It’s absolute BS to just say “it’s up to the truck driver to maintain a safe distance”.
In the real world, an endless supply of jack-knobs pull right in front of you making that literally impossible.
What’s funny is they won’t cut off another car... you can see them trying to get over and the space they always choose for their cut-in-with-zero-room move is in front of the biggest truck.

People who do that and get hit brought it on themselves, but I don’t have any reason to believe that’s what these people did, I wasn’t there.

[joerg68]

Well, for one it might be a good idea to slam on your brakes hard to avoid crashing into the vehicle ahead of you. Because they are suddenly stopped and you notice late because you were primarily watching the traffic behind you while you were merging... So maybe you avoid the crash, but not the vehicle behind you. We were not there. Sometimes the holes in the cheese line up just right.

[mkirsch]

profdant139 wrote:
Who in his right mind would slam on the brakes in front of a big rig?

Lots of people NOT in their right mind would slam on their brakes in front of a tractor trailer, though. Idiots are not in their right mind. They don't have a right mind. Lots of idiots on the road. Owning a TC does not preclude one from being an idiot, sorry to say.

[discovery4us]

I haven't been down this section of CA99 in a few weeks as it is too congested most of the time. based on the pictures I would say it is just south of the Rosedale Highway/highway 58 onramp and just on the south side of the Kern River. What appears to be a frontage road is the Kern River bike path at Yokuts Park. Many accidents here as the merge lane onto CA99 from Rosedale HGWY is very short and most are not able to get up to highway speed in time to merge. The onramp also goes from two lanes to one lane just as you enter CA99 so many people are busy merging lanes on the onramp and don't realize how fast the traffic on CA 99 is going. Also California Avenue exit/onramp will often back up highway traffic and if that one doesn't the next is the CA99 and CA58 interchange that is almost always backed up.

[zcookiemonstar]

I will say I see a lot of truck drivers on their cell phones not watching the road. I am not saying that happened here but may have.

[bighatnohorse]

If you examine the photo closely it appears that the camper slide forward in the bed and flipped up into the area.

The civilian first responder reported that

The camper came through the cab and hit the driver in the head.

This alone indicates that the camper truck did not have it's brakes fully engaged as claimed (by the truck driver?) report that the camper slammed on its brakes.

The truck camper was traveling fast enough to impact the tree with enough force to break the camper loose from it's tie downs - and strike the driver in the head. This would indicate that the truck camper had not slowed down - let alone slam on it's brakes.

From the simple evidence available herein, I have to conclude that the camper was rear-ended at speed.

[Kayteg1]

joerg68 wrote:
... How did the camper end up in this position, almost crushing the cab. What tiedown system did they use, and how did it fail in the chain of events that ended with their truck against that unfortunate tree? Did the first rear impact tear out the rear tiedowns, and the bouncing camper down that slope take out the fronts? I would like to know - for my own safety - if there is a lesson to be learned here. Besides that traffic is dangerous, don't brake unexpectedly if you can avoid it, and sometimes trees grow in unfortunate spaces...

I enlarged the picture and seems the truck hit tree stump and camper just pivoted over the cabin.
When the picture doesn't show tie-downs, I see what seems to be ties still attached to camper.
That is my experience and what I read on the forum as well that week point are tie-downs, where 1" square tubing is not match for 6000 lb camper and I believe that is what gave in this accident.
Coming to reliability of the report, it shows the combo hit a tree in the area having service road and then dirt road going into some kind of park.
I zoomed satellite pictures of quoted location and such landscape there does not exist.
There is something looking similar next to the river, but that's few blocks from quoted location.
Keep on guessing.

[BradW]

profdant139 wrote:


I am by no means saying that the folks in the TC in this accident staged this event! Just that it does happen.

I agree, it does happen.

When I took my driving test 50 years ago, the only thing I missed was not looking in the rear view mirror when the officer directed me to stop while driving down the road. I learned from that is you had better look in the mirror before a hard stop or you can be killed by someone behind you.

Brad

[wnjj]

profdant139 wrote:
Brad, I agree -- how do we know that the article is accurate? Who in his right mind would slam on the brakes in front of a big rig?

Having said that, there are many, many well documented incidents in urban areas in which folks stage accidents by doing exactly that -- it is called "swoop and squat."

Here is an article about that scam and others like it:

Staged crashes

I am by no means saying that the folks in the TC in this accident staged this event! Just that it does happen.

Someone might slam on the brakes in front of a big rig if they were panicked, overwhelmed or oblivious. Again, no judgement about this particular wreck but even those in their right mind don’t always act accordingly.

I hope they make a full recovery. As bad as the wrecked looked I was surprised to hear they were injured so severely when the cab looks mostly intact.

[joerg68]

Well, two people got badly hurt, and I hope they will recover from this accident. I am sure it was not in their vacation plans... in the end, it will boil down to who pays what. Doesn't make their injuries any less.

What I would like to know - and why I looked into the local news from Bakersfield,CA, on the other side of the earth: How did the camper end up in this position, almost crushing the cab. What tiedown system did they use, and how did it fail in the chain of events that ended with their truck against that unfortunate tree? Did the first rear impact tear out the rear tiedowns, and the bouncing camper down that slope take out the fronts? I would like to know - for my own safety - if there is a lesson to be learned here. Besides that traffic is dangerous, don't brake unexpectedly if you can avoid it, and sometimes trees grow in unfortunate spaces...

[bighatnohorse]

BradW wrote:

profdant139 wrote:
According to the article, I think it says that the TC hit the brakes and caused the rear-end collision.....

More fake news.

Roger that!
No eye witnesses - other than possibly the truck driver. And what's his/her story going to be other than "they slammed on the brakes".

Here's the Instagram first responder (civilian person):

When I reached in the cab the driver Ed had no pulse, wasn't breathing and his lips were turning blue. I checked his pulse 4 times and his situation wasn't changing. I continued to keep Rosemary talking and kept telling her that Ed was just unconscious. Both of her wrists were broken terribly and just hanging from her arms.
I was shocked when Ed started breathing, then his color came back and he started moving! He had been gone for at least 5 mins.
Many other people stopped to help. It was an overwhelming experience. It reminded us that in a split second your life can change.
repost from @roadpickle
We "kinda" witnessed a major accident this morning along CA-99 South in Bakersfield. We witnessed a semi rear ending a semi. What we didn't witness was the first semi rear ending a pick up truck camper. The pick up truck camper was catapulted off the side of the freeway and into a tree. We were the first on the scene. Sash jumped out of our truck to help. They were pinned into the cab. The camper came through the cab and hit the driver in the head. He appeared to be dead. His wife in the passenger seat had both wrists broken and broken ribs. The driver slowly came to, but was dazed. I was on the phone calling 911, and frustrated I got a recorded message saying all lines are busy. Who the **** is clogging up the emergency line when we got people dying here?? More people came over. I finally saw a CHP officer up ahead, stopping to look at the semi trucks. I ran over to him to tell him that he needed to be over here to help this couple. Fire trucks finally arrived, they had to saw off tree branches to get them out. My best guess is that the camper got on the freeway too slow, the truck seemed underpowered for the size of the camper on it. A semi slammed into it, and another semi slammed into that semi. We barely stopped in time to avoid the crash. Quite a morning. Sash gave all she could to help and comfort this couple.

[profdant139]

Brad, I agree -- how do we know that the article is accurate? Who in his right mind would slam on the brakes in front of a big rig?

Having said that, there are many, many well documented incidents in urban areas in which folks stage accidents by doing exactly that -- it is called "swoop and squat."

Here is an article about that scam and others like it:

Staged crashes

I am by no means saying that the folks in the TC in this accident staged this event! Just that it does happen.