crash

Oklahoma state senator Earl Garrison has introduced a bill to lower the speed limit for trucks from 75mph to 65mph  on the Oklahoma Turnpike system following a terrible crash last summer when ten people were killed. The crash on the Rogers Turnpike (I-44) June 26 eastbound at MM321 in Ottawa County OK occurred when a tractor-trailer plowed into stopped traffic at the scene of a minor non-injury crash.

Ten people died in a multi-vehicle crash today on Will Rogers Turnpike (I-44) in far northeast Oklahoma after an 18-wheeler slammed into stopped traffic at high speed.

Traffic was stopped because of an earlier non-fatal crash. People on the scene are reported saying the truck barely slowed before hitting an SUV at the tail of a backup, suggesting driver inattention was the cause.

A Baltimore lawyer who represents the family of a John Short who died last August 10 when his tractor trailer effortlessly pushed through the parapet wall and plunged off the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is likely to sue the bridge operator Maryland Transportation (Toll) Authority (MDTA) for negligence. Attorney Keith Franz says the bridge may meet 1950s standards, but it isn't maintained and operated according to contemporary standards.

A small plane made an emergency landing on the eastbound roadway of the Pennsylvania Turnpike just before 1pm today hitting a tractor-trailer and bouncing over a guard rail. The pilot who was flying alone was taken to a medical center in Carlisle complaining of pain in his back. There were no other injuries and there has been no major disruption of traffic, local reports say.

The Portland Press Herald headlined it "Cigarette leads to Turnpike traffic woes." The poor cigarette was being stomped on.

The cigarette smoking driver Melissa Hernandez, 42 of Weymouth MA was so busy extinguishing her cigarette Sunday afternoon she neglected her driving and ran off the Maine Turnpike into a fence.

She told police she was distracted by the cigarette.

Officials say a car driver falling asleep at the wheel and veering into the path of a truck traveling the other direction during two-way operations was the cause of the crash that sent the truck crashing down into Chesapeake Bay last Sunday morning. The car driver, a 19 year old woman, told police at the hospital and a Washington Post reporter by telephone that she fell asleep at the wheel. It was 4am.

Maryland's notorious Chesapeake Bay Bridge suffered another fatal collision in two-way traffic on Sunday morning. A tractor trailer struck a car in the opposing direction of traffic at around 4am, lost control, neatly punched out a section of concrete parapet and plunged 10m (35ft) into the waters of the Bay.

The driver was killed.

What looks like a classic fall-asleep-at-the-wheel crash occurred at 21:55 (9:55pm) Saturday night on the Ohio Turnpike leaving the tractor-trailer driver and two boys dead in the wreckage. AP quotes a state highway patrol officer as saying the tractor-trailer carrying a load of apples eastbound crashed into an overpass.

By some accounts half of total congestion on the roads is the result of chronic overloading, the other half comes from incidents. Many are small but it's the spectacular ones that attract the most attention - like a crash described by the Pittsburgh Tribune that occurred July 20 on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near mile marker MM140, a few miles west of the Bedford interchange IC146.

A lawyer for the New Jersey Turnpike, William B Ziff managed to provoke some wild headlines today: "NJ ADDS INSULT TO INJURY: SUES TRAGIC CRASH KIN" and "NJ Turnpike officials sue crash victims".

"Disgraceful and obscene" and "the most outrageous thing I have seen in a long time" were comments from lawyers of those sued.

Two members of an Australian rockband driving between performances in Detroit MI and Brooklyn NY were killed Thursday morning and three others injured on the Ohio Turnpike. Their SUV apparently crashed after the driver - one of those killed - swerved to avoid a deer in the roadway. The driver lost control of the vehicle which hit the rightside guardrail, then bounced back across the roadway overturning and hitting the central concrete median barrier between the two directions of travel.

The Press of Atlantic City newspaper removed video of a fiery crash at the Great Egg Toll Plaza on the Garden State Parkway from their website under pressure from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. But it is still available on other sites, and TV stations have shown the video. The video comes from one of the Authority's own surveillance cameras located high on a pole overlooking the approaches to the plaza. The video is date and time stamped across the bottom.

David Halberstam was one of the best correspondents in Vietnam during the war I remember. He loved to discuss and argue, and had an enormous capacity to demonstrate a theme with examples. I remember - rather vaguely - several exchanges with him while we were both reporters in Saigon.

Aggressive driving by his New Jersey police driver Trooper Robert Rasinski was the main cause of the crash that nearly killed state Governor Jon Corzine on the Garden State Parkway Apr 12. And obsolete engineering designs of the steel guardrail in the median caused what should be a safety feature of the Parkway to become a near-lethal spear that reared up and tore through the Governor's out-of-control vehicle.

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine suffered serious chest and leg injuries in a car crash on the Garden State Parkway Thursday about 6pm, while being driven from Altantic City to his home in Princeton. Corzine was taken with two injured aides by helicopter to Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

Doctors said he suffered "severe trauma" in the crash.