My haul departed Wetaskiwin headed for Grand Prarie AB this morning. At 1035 I was just north of Whitecourt AB and cresting the top of Iosegun Hill just south of Fox creek. The roads were glare ice, no sanding trucks around yet. I was going about 50kmph most of the way. The hill is in 2 tiers, I slid down the first tier and slowed it down on the flat spot. I stopped on the shoulder and got out to check the road surface - just like a skating rink. Got back in the truck, thought about putting on my tire chains - Nah, its too dangerous of a spot as I cant see over the top of the hill... Ill just stay in the fluffy stuff on the shoulder and crawl down the other side, yeah. I start rolling, maybe 20kmph, and WHAMMO, everything falls off my dash and bunk shelves, then a shower of sparks goes by my left side and into the ditch. This hill drops off to a very steep grade, curves right on the downhill, then back left at the bottom over a bridge to go up that area you can see in the background. Its a brutal hill. Wouldnt be so bad if it was straight.

It turns out that this other truck came over the hill around 80kmph, and went sideways. His trailer connected with mine, tore in half, and he went into the ditch. I was launched ahead about 160 feet.

Man am I glad I DID NOT get out to install the chains - I would be dead.

The road was closed for 2 hours for cleanup. I ended up with a written off rear trailer, 3 popped tires and damaged rims, red paint all down the side of both trailers, no mirrors or lights on the left side, and a damaged driver door. My truck might get written off as its an older truck in the fleet. His traialer is done, the right side of his truck is just as damaged as the left side of mine is.

The towtruck winched my rear bumper away from the tires and I got a police escort down closed roads for 23km to Fox Creek where I sit now waiting for the tow truck to bring me a replacement tractor and take my wrecked tractor and the damaged trailer back to base.

Here is some photos of the aftermath, and I will add in a link to my dashcam video once I figure out how to shorten it to less than 700MB.

This is standing where I was when I was hit. You can see that I was on the shoulder, and the road is 3 lanes wide down the hill. Slow trucks keep right. I was very slow and kept very right. The 2 dirty snow piles were shaken off the trailer when it was hit.


This is my trailer with some of his welded into the hinges, rear bumper is bent badly, both left tires popped.



Here is his truck.




So i wonder if I can have a bonus for coming back with more trailer than I left with LOL

You might have noticed that the skids are single file for 3 skids in the front of his trailer, and double wide for the last 10 skids in the trailer. This makes for a tail heavy load, and could possibly be the cause of the loss of trailer control he had. I would have had them double wide in the FRONT as far back as there was skids, and empty on the back end. Of course I am a professional driver though, and would have never loaded a van like that. You want as much weight on the tractors drive tires as possible, not more on the trailer axles than on the tractors drives as this load would have provided... This guy could have had 3 tons more on the drive axles, and 3 tons less on the trailer axles (depending on the weight of those totes, Im guessing 1 ton each at least). Of course he had come out of the USA, and the american rules for axle weight allowances may be different than my Canadian rules, I dont know for sure. I know a set of tandem axles in Canada can weigh no more than 17,000KG. The driver seemed like a fellow professional, and had just lost control of the unit, my dashcam shows him skidding past me about 60-65kmph I estimate - IMO thats too fast for conditions. The RCMP blamed road conditions for the collision and nobody was charged for the accident.

There was a secondary collision behind us, a wide load pulled out to wait for a sanding truck and some lady buried her small car under the back of his wide load (also driing too fast for the road conditions). The collision was VERY bad but she was out walking around just cut up some. She was even luckier than we were. I did not take photos of that wreck out of respect, she was not out of the car when I walked back and I did not want to see what might have been left of her in that small car... I cant beleive she was OK

EDIT here is the video
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10153496331730128

 

Holy sh**! Glad you are ok!!

 

So lucky , it could have been much worse

the totes should be roughly 1000L each
Using water weight of 2.2lbs per liter , that 2200lbs each

Did you call Jamie Davis towing ?

 

Ha ha, no. Jamie Davis is in SW BC, not central Alberta. I got to limp out of there under escort to Fox Creek to open the road, they were still cleaning up his mess when I left.

 

That's pretty scary, good to hear all were ok. Clearly your judgement saved you, instead of just trying to hammer down and ride it out.

 

Sorry you had to go through that but glad you decided against putting the chains on.

 

looks like he is headed into Fort Mac also

 

Holly Hell that was a lucky break! I'm glad I gave it up, getting more and more unprofessional drivers in the US. The axle allowance in the states is max 34,000lbs trailer axles (for tandems) and 34,000lbs on truck tandems and 12,000 for steer axle.

 

Glad your ok, wouldnt want to lose any of us guys And gals

 

Actually, most states will allow up to 20k on a steer, so long as your axle and tires are rated for it. If 12k was an absolute thing, there'd be no heavy haul, and vocational trucks wouldn't be able to go over 46k at the most. By the way, the weights you're giving and the 80k limit is a federal interstate limit.. several states have higher weights grandfathered in. For example, on Colorado, you can go 85k single piece without requiring a permit, and, even at 80k, you can still have up to 36k on a set of tandems, provided the 35 ft. bridge length between trailer and drive tandems is met.
I have to agree with the lack of professionalism among drivers here, and it's not always just the new drivers, either.