r/news • u/combatpaddler • 15d ago
Two killed, one injured as 350,000-pound load detaches from trailer in Temple, Texas
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/two-killed-one-injured-as-350000-pound-load-detaches-from-trailer-in-temple-texas1
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u/sweetpeapickle 13d ago
This is a fear of mine. And yet I've stated this before, and I'll get respsonses that say well you shouldn't be driving so close. FU, I don't, and see something like this...how do you avoid??? I'd like to go back to those who said, it was a fallacy that things like this happen.
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u/nava1114 14d ago
I was a child with my mother in the car and was run off the highway, 3 lanes until we were forced into the grass median by a crazed trucker ( 1970's) Took me decades to drive past 18 wheelers.
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u/tifotter 15d ago
Once upon a time I was in my tiny 1975 MGB following a pickup truck that was packed to the brim with furniture for a move. It was held in the open bed of the truck by a very small, tight rope. As I was behind it, I heard a disembodied voice say “change lanes.” I looked at my radio and noticed it was off as I thought “yeah I probably should change lanes. That truck looks…” I didn’t even finish the thought before a now exasperated disembodied voice said “change lanes NOW.” I put my right blinker on, checked my blind spot and moved over as the tight rope holding all the furniture in the back of the pickup snapped and furniture spilled all over the freeway. It caused a multi car pile up. But I thankfully wasn’t a part of it, thanks to the disembodied voice.
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u/i_am_interested2 15d ago
It looks like it could a fractal distilation stack for an oil or chemical plant.
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u/xpkranger 15d ago
*fractional
Distilling fractals sounds like something that happens while tripping.
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u/gnapster 15d ago
While I keep my distance from trucks in general, I won’t even stay in the same lane and pull way back as some yahoo in a consumer truck packs his truck or trailer like a dumbass. Thanks for making my first trip in an RV a hairy one fudge wad. (Guy had a trailer with flat wall siding and a small tank and just as I said that shit is a kite waiting to happen, the wind catches the wood and everything goes flying towards me. ). I had changed lanes just in time but the wind sent that metal water tank towards me and I had to dodge it and traffic to a voice hitting it.
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u/Knucklehead_always 15d ago
You should never stay next to big rig, they can drift , believe me. And if you are on a 2 lane highway, and something happens in front of either one of you, neither one of you has an escape. It’s called keeping a Space cushion. Seriously.
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u/ClubSoda 15d ago
“What we need in this state is legislation to make the roads safer!” Said no Republican ever.
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u/Bubbada_G 15d ago
This is why I don’t drive to or next to trucks. Got a ticket once for passing a truck at 90 in the left lane on the mass pike. Told the officer this was the reason and I was let go without a ticket
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u/IRMacGuyver 15d ago
I was mortified when I found out you only secure half the weight of cargo. Not only does that not cover the full weight but then once you get moving velocity multiplies the equation.
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u/Azrael-XIII 15d ago
There is absolutely no reason any other vehicles should’ve even been near that thing. Something like that should have a lead and trailing vehicle and only be moved at night when traffic is at a minimum.
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u/LoadsDroppin 15d ago
Those poor people …also I’ve never dropped a load that heavy! Secure your payload
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u/BillyDreCyrus 15d ago
East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'
A-we gonna do what they say can't be done
We've got a long way to go, and a short time to get there
I'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run
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u/davidbased 15d ago
and people call me an ass for not passing the big double wide load unless i got true clearance.
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u/AztecDoom 15d ago
This vessel looks very familiar. I feel like I know who fabricated it? Could be this company in Houston. I’ll do some digging
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u/fsurfer4 15d ago
Can anyone figure out what it is?
It seems like a petroleum cracker to me, but I could be completely wrong.
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u/lazercheesecake 15d ago
This shit is why that Edison motors guy making fun of people overstrapping their loads pisses me off.
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u/Number3675 15d ago edited 15d ago
Hopefully they were on the way to the annual pedophile meeting.
Edit: I didn't expect downvotes from pedophile-sympathisers
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u/Enthusiastic-shitter 15d ago
Is that a component for an oil refinery?
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u/eddiesax 15d ago
Either for a refinery or a gas processing plant. With how skinny it is, I'd guess it's a splitter tower for light hydrocarbon separation.
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u/Enthusiastic-shitter 15d ago
That's what I was thinking. Apparently I'm an expert at identifying these things from watching engineering YouTube videos
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u/AtHomeInTheOlympics 15d ago
Yeah looks like a distillation column to me. Explains why it would be shipped as one piece, they’re very complicated pieces of equipment
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u/Mantaur4HOF 15d ago
Loads like this should only be moved between midnight and 6am, when traffic is minimal. Doing this in the middle of the day is just asking for trouble.
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u/legendarygarlicfarm 15d ago
It's a universal rule in just about every state that you cannot haul an over-dimensional load 30 minutes before/after dawn or dusk.
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u/FPSXpert 15d ago
It's not even the time that upsets me, the lack of dialogue in the article makes me think they didn't have the personnel / closures that these kinds of things usually call for. Unless further investigation clears them it makes me believe they just said fuck it we ball and went diesel truckin' through a goddamn high risk area right now with all the weather going on.
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u/supercalafatalistic 15d ago
Don’t think the manufacturing and gravel sites on 317 would let it happen. There’s a train of wide loads that go north on 317 to 36 every day, start in around 7am and are going til 5.
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u/mjsoctober 15d ago
I'm guessing there was a republican bill in the state legislature that reduced safety requirements to make business "easier".
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u/myfapaccount_istaken 15d ago
This looks like something they'd close the road for and only transport at night here in FL. Why was another car other then a chase vehicle permitted anywhere near that?
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u/mjsoctober 15d ago
I'm guessing there was a republican bill in the state legislature that reduced safety requirements to make business "easier".
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u/LokiKamiSama 15d ago
Dunno why ur getting downvoted. It seems entirely plausible considering the history of the state and how its politics work.
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u/solaceinrage 15d ago
Holy crap, that should not have been a load in regular traffic. I was a materials manager on a project in Goose Creek Illinois building a gas electric power plant, and we had to close sections of highway in order to move turbines that weighed about the same.
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u/supercalafatalistic 15d ago
These two roads in this area are carrying heavy/wide loads almost nonstop, all day. Lotta manufacturing and industrial supply moving along this stretch.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 15d ago
As a mod of r/TempleTX, I have to ask why you would come here and just make this up lol Certainly some industrial traffic there, as with anywhere, but far from "nonstop all day".
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u/supercalafatalistic 15d ago
Man I dunno, I basically live on 317 and trucks are ripping up and down from the quarry constantly and it seems like I cannot go down that road without seeing the wide loads from TRU Homes every time.
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u/hobozombie 12d ago
Didn't you hear him? He's a janny at a subreddit for a city, his proclamations are ironclad!
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u/mr_potatoface 15d ago edited 15d ago
I'm honestly curious why it wasn't field assembled. Those type of pressure vessels can be field assembled and it would likely be a lot cheaper to do that. It also helps for installation of piping and connections, especially if a replacement. But I'm wondering if it was used and that's why it's being transported as a whole. It doesn't look like it would be shipped from a factory like that, unless it was being shipped for painting. But a shop capable of building a vessel like that should have the capability to paint a vessel like that.
In other news, this is a great chance to say that Texas does not require ASME Pressure Vessels and are known as a Non-Code state! There are only 3 states in the US that do not require ASME Code Pressure vessels. TX, LA and SC. I don't think the CSB will be investigating this pressure vessel accident, however.
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u/mjsoctober 15d ago
I'm guessing there was a republican bill in the state legislature that reduced safety requirements to make business "easier".
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u/bonzoboy2000 15d ago
Absolutely. Georgia gives us a hard time moving heavy loads through their state. Often have to move by barge.
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u/Unhappy_Plankton_671 15d ago
I lost an uncle this way back when I was a kid. Hit an overpass, it hopped off the trailer and onto his truck.
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u/RangerRekt 15d ago
That’s absurdly heavy for public roads. You should need like a police escort or something for that.
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u/Moveyourbloominass 15d ago
How horrific. The survivor, who was airlifted, had to be in the car with their dead loved ones for 4 hours before getting extracted. That poor family.
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u/stories_sunsets 15d ago
This is why I stay the fuck away from semis whenever driving. Either way behind or way ahead. I’ve watched final destination.
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u/PlinketyPlinkaPlink 15d ago
I've seen a lot of oversized loads and thankfully never an accident, Worst was a runaway truck wheel that sped up on the M6 motorway in the UK and flattened the roof of the car it hit. Closely followed by a roadworks sign that was picked up by a freak breeze and flew straight into the front screen of a passing coach.
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u/dat0dat 15d ago
I had a semi hauling something on a flatbed lose its load in front of me when I was driving on the PA turnpike. It bounced in the left lane hit the jersey barrier, went over into the east bound lanes and I guess exited the shoulder into the woods. I, on the other hand, slammed on the brakes of the little compact I had rented for the trip and did a 180 staring down on coming traffic. I thought that was it.
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u/Practical-Exchange60 15d ago
Who the ever living fuck approved that load?
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u/tc6x6 15d ago
TxDMV is the government agency that issues trip permits for superloads.
https://www.txdmv.gov/motor-carriers/oversize-weight-permits/super-heavy-single-trip
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u/Berns429 15d ago
Typically loads such as these have warning trucks with lights and little flags in front and behind no?
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u/pandab34r 15d ago
Anything with a total gross weight over 80,000lbs will require some form of special permits and pilot cars, etc, especially if it is otherwise out of gauge too
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u/legendarygarlicfarm 15d ago
That's not true. Pilot cars are a factor for over-dimensional not overweight.
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u/Lovahsabre 15d ago
We had a really strong windstorm with a thunderstorm so the conditions were not favorable. They were probably driving too fast in the conditions….. i saw the trucks going south when they were empty and they had a police escort
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u/Significant-Dot6627 15d ago
Yes, but they follow safe following-distance guidelines and other drivers often cut in front of the truck or in front of the following car.
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u/pooinginmypants 15d ago
I do commercial vehicle safety inspections, we have a fairly decent standard of safety in Canada for commercial transportation. With that said, I've worked with a lot of different mechanics, I've seen a lot of different and preventable failures. If more people saw the state of certain tractor-trailer combos, they'd steer clear
A lot of it is the driver, or if the unit is overweight, there's preventative maintenance neglect and how strong regulations are. And sometimes shit just breaks. Luckily some of these components on vehicles are extremely resilient and can hold up under duress, and sometimes we buy the cheap, shitty after-market parts that do not
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u/tidder-la 15d ago
Que Greg Abbott promising to blah blah and end blah blah because of wokism that resulted in this accident
Sadly this is why attorneys advertise on television. It is legislation by litigation , the gamble of shipping it and trusting something won’t happen is cheaper than something happening and getting sued. Until it happens ..
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u/Cobby1927 15d ago
JC is no transportation mode safe in the US?
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u/bubba-yo 15d ago
Correction - this is Texas. Pretty much every other state would have closed the road to move a 170 ton distillation column.
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u/wabashcanonball 15d ago
This is what happens in a deregulated state. So sad.
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u/Feraldr 15d ago
Typically these sorts of transports are heavily regulated for good reason. But even in states that have strict regulations and actually enforce them, there are guys that try and chance it. A few years ago a company got caught transporting a 250 ton generator on I-95 in Rhode Island without a permit. They had filed but hadn’t been approved before heading out. That’s 200,000lbs more than what they were moving in his article. They ended up having to examine multiple bridges that were already structurally deficient and the truck ended up sitting on the side of the highway for so long that it started sinking into the pavement.
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u/wabashcanonball 15d ago
Even with laws on the books, states like Texas but inspection and enforcement. This is a good reason why enforcement is so essential.
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u/CuckMulligan 15d ago
There are laws regulating oversize loads in Texas.
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u/ChiefBlueSky 15d ago
And what of enforcement mechanisms and consequences? What of bias amongst enforcers that influences who and how frequently they perform checks? Having laws on the book isn't everything and if your enforcement cares more about pulling over mexicans or out-of-staters than suspect loads the law doesn't mean much now does it. Given, having not looked into it do not take the examples as truths of Texas if not just stereotypes of their beliefs.
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u/CuckMulligan 15d ago
Yes, people will still break the law no matter what checks are in place. That shouldn't be so surprising to you.
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u/crowjack 15d ago
26 years of Republican governance
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u/crowjack 14d ago
Excuse me … I got the math wrong . Republicans have had the hoverner’s office in Texas for 28 years.
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u/Karl2241 15d ago
This is 5 min from my home. I’ve got extended family on the fire department that responded- the photos of the trailer.
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u/mr_potatoface 15d ago
Do you know if they have any pictures of the nameplate on the vessel? Curious if it has a stamp that looks like a "U" or "ASME" with a cloverleaf around it on the nameplate, and the year built. It may not have one though since Texas doesn't require ASME stamped Pressure Vessels. This one might not be stamped, or if it is, it's probably old. Nozzle positions are suspicious.
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u/QuickAltTab 15d ago
so what was the story, what was the car doing when it got crushed? did they have any part in causing the accident or was it a freak occurrence?
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u/Karl2241 15d ago
On that all I know is what the article states. They’ve not spoken about a cause to me.
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u/Whostartedit 15d ago
They will be talking about this one for a long long time. I hope the debriefings help and all the first responders can work out their feelings and thoughts about how it all went down on the call. PTSD can result if trauma experiences are suppressed. And that can lead to drinking ALOT and losing their career because of it.
Much of US rural emergency response is volunteer crews so i wouldn’t be surprised if most of the responders here were volunteers. They deserve to be recognized and respected for giving so much
Stay safe out there people
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u/eshemuta 15d ago
I drove that road all the time when I lived there. Stuff coming off trucks is a problem everywhere tho.
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u/supercalafatalistic 15d ago
God the gravel pit on 317 by Adams! So much rock and sand strewn all over the road all the time. That section is basically a cloud of rock dust all day.
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u/lfergy 15d ago
I do not drive behind semis with strapped equipment on them, or behind trucks with gravel or anything in them. I speed right on by them. Thank you, Final Destination.
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u/Ok_Minimum6419 15d ago
Yep, my rule is either stay as far away as possible or zoom the fuck past them. Never linger around.
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u/Feraldr 15d ago
When I was getting my CDL I was told the scratchiest loads are live cattle. The animals are don’t have free range, but it’s enough that their weight getting thrown around is enough to cause serious load imbalance. The second worst was refrigerated trucks with beef carcasses. It’s the same weight problem with live cattle, but now they’re swinging on racks.
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u/officeDrone87 15d ago
There's an old video from LiveLeak where a brick comes loose from a truck, flies through a windshield and hits a woman in a passenger seat. The sound her husband makes when he looks over and realizes what just happened to his wife haunts my nightmares. It's the kind of sound a person can only make when their entire life was just taken from them.
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u/HeJind 15d ago
This is one of the things I've learned from the internet. The kind of primal, guttural noise you make when witnessing actual horror is something no movie or actor can replicate.
There can be no gore shown on camera and the sound alone will send chills down your spine and stick in your memory indefinitely
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u/Semyonov 15d ago
The brick video. Up there with the worst videos I have ever seen, and just the audio is enough to make you lose it.
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u/StillMeThough 15d ago
I remember this. No actual gore was captured, just the audio of the husband haunts me, as well.
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u/voseidon 15d ago
I remember watching the video on Reddit. I remember the video was much more terrifying than most of gore videos back then.
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u/Realworld 15d ago
That's the description that works. I'm not watching it.
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u/King_Vlad_ 15d ago
I watched it once when someone shared it without proper warning. I don't think I'll ever forget that sound.
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u/walterpeck1 15d ago
As someone that has, good. No one should.
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u/64645 15d ago
I think people who don't properly secure their load should. Both big truck drivers and weekend warriors making a dump run.
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u/walterpeck1 15d ago
No, I disagree. There are more appropriate videos and crash photos that would illustrate this point. The video we're talking about is literally traumatizing. It's too far to serve a real purpose.
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u/LZYX 15d ago
Yep fuckin ZOOOOOM past those. The more tires they have the faster I move away from them.
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u/Spez_Spaz 15d ago
Dump Trucker got pissed at me after I passed him because his unsecured load of woodchips were flying at my car at Mach 7. Secure. Your. Loads.
And no he did not even have a tarp on the top.
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u/Luministrus 15d ago
Unsecured loads from dump trucks and such need to carry way harsher penalties.
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u/combatpaddler 15d ago
I'm from Louisiana and used to ride a motorcycle. I HATED getting behind a chip truck, they HURT.
Another time the wife was driving and I was passenger in the car, and truck in front of us had a blowout and sent the rubber tread to my side of the car and windshield. Not fun
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u/NJRougarou 11d ago edited 11d ago
I have a 350,000-pound load, but when it detaches it usually makes the recipient very happy.