Update on this...ended up being 28 vehicles (24 passenger vehicles and 4 semis) involved in the crash and 4 dead. The driver is a 23 year old Cuban National here on a green card. The trucking company he drives for is based out of Houston and they are a small company running 5 trucks. In less than the past 2 years, they have been cited with more than 30 violations, 10 of which are brake problems with their trucks. Even worse, 2 of the violations are for employing drivers that don't know enough English to read highway and traffic signs (which legally you must be able to if you want to drive in the US). What makes this important is that there's video of him before the accident, approximately 5 or so miles back up the mountain showing him blowing past a runaway truck ramp and almost running a pickup truck off the road. He had lost control of his vehicle that far back and he didn't even make an effort to use the runaway truck ramp.Originally Posted by Teh One Who Knocks
So this happened yesterday right near work on the highway I take. Luckily it happened after I left work, but there are multiple fatalities and as of now the interstate is still closed. I had to go the long way around to avoid it this morning. I guess they are looking into the cause, which appeared to be a semi that lost his brakes coming down out of the mountains. The area where it happened is near where it starts becoming flat again after a long descent from the mountains, and it's a long downhill run and steep and here at work, especially in the nice weather when the doors are all open, we can smell hot/burning brakes all the time. Even this morning on the way in I saw a semi pulled over and there was smoke coming from his brakes. They are saying it ivolved at least 12 passenger vehicles and 3 semis.
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