Truck YeahThe trucks are good!If you’re like most human beings who have ever driven on America’s public highways, you harbor a shameful and powerful desire to watch an out-of-control 18-wheeler truck go barreling up a runaway truck ramp. You don’t want anyone to be actually hurt, but you can’t help it. Something deep and strange inside of you longs to see those 40,000 pounds of grade-A truck roast plow up a massive hill of sand. I’d like to inform you that you now have this opportunity.
First, I want to mention that nobody was injured or killed during any of this, so you can watch it relatively guilt-free. This happened this past Friday, just outside of Denver.
Jesse Terrell was driving back from Denver when he realized that something was up with the truck nearby him, which was in quite a state:
“[the truck was driving] upwards of 80, 85 miles an hour. The smell was horrible, just that burning rubber, and that’s when I knew, oh, his brakes are now gone.”
Terrell also noted that the truck’s driver “seemed like he had his head on his shoulders,” which is corroborated by what happened, specifically that the driver correctly assessed he would be unable to stop the truck, and so ditched into the runaway truck ramp, which Terrell caught on video:
Yiiiiikes. It almost looks like a rocket taking off.
This was absolutely the right decision for the trucker to make. Colorado State Patrol made it clear in an interview with Fox 31 Denver that there are no penalties for truckers using the runaway truck ramps—that’s what they’re there for, after all.
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Unfortunately, the high cost of extracting a truck from one of the ramps, which can range from $4,000 to $10,000, is often a factor in drivers deciding to risk controlling a runaway truck with no brakes instead of using the ramp.
Of course, that’s a terrible idea.
I wonder if the no-penalties rule counts if you just want to try one out in your car?
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