UNSAFE LANE CHANGES ARE BIG FACTOR IN TRUCK CRASHES
As he hurtled up Interstate 10 near Picacho Peak, truck driver Donald E. Mueller flipped on his turn signal and began to move left into the fast lane. Shortly after that he felt a jolt.
At first Mueller thought his red tractor-trailer had blown a tire, a highway patrolman's report from the March 14 incident shows. But the jolt was a Nissan sedan getting jammed under the big rig's trailer at about 75 mph with a man, a woman and their 15-month-old boy inside.
The trailer — loaded with hazardous drums of phosphoric acid and lye — dragged the car 792 feet, spraying sparks and gouging the pavement with the Nissan's wheel rims.
By the time the tractor-trailer slowed to a stop, the friction had ignited the mangled car. Fire flared from beneath and spread into the passenger compartment. In the sedan's back seat, the mother couldn't get out fast enough. She unbuckled her son, Aaron, from his child seat and thrust him out the window onto the pavement.
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As families hit the highways on vacation this summer, they'll face a minor threat from hazardous cargo or poorly maintained trucks. They'll face a much bigger threat from those truck drivers who make mistakes.
Hundreds of times each year, professional big-rig drivers cruising Arizona's desert highways change lanes when it is not safe to do so.
An improper lane change involving a truck was a factor in about 1,100 crashes in 2005, the last year for which data were available from the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Arizona Daily Star found. About 275 people were injured and four died in those crashes.
The crashes include tractors with trailers and other truck combinations.
Driving too fast, fatigue and other factors cause more deaths and injuries, but truckers who make unsafe lane changes or simply drift out of their lanes may be the most intimidating to other motorists.
"In my opinion, there are a lot of (truck) drivers out there who have no clue," said Tucson gasoline-tanker driver Frank Yates. "Or they know what they're doing, but they take shortcuts."
They also fight to relieve boredom.
"They get on the phone. They do crossword puzzles," Yates said. "Next thing they know, they look up and they've pushed someone off the road."
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Flames burned her arm badly as Chantavy Yongbanthom reached down to unbuckle her seat belt and get out of the back seat of the Nissan sedan.
Mueller, the truck driver, separated his burning trailer from the tractor and drove the tractor farther east on I-10 near Picacho to avoid having it engulfed in flame. Then he came back to help. Yongbanthom got out of the car, and Mueller patted her hair to snuff out fire.
According to Yongbanthom's sister Annetta, Yongbanthom later recalled that because she was on fire as she emerged from the car, someone told her to drop and roll. She did — into acid that had leaked from the trailer onto the ground.
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From 1993 through 1995, Arizona saw eight fatal crashes between large trucks over 10,000 pounds and passenger vehicles in which truck drivers failed to stay in the proper lane, federal data show.
And unsafe lane changes were a factor in two other such deadly crashes.
Other problems with drivers were highlighted in March, when Department of Public Safety officers inspected more than 1,000 trucks during special operations in Nogales and Yuma. Inspectors pulled 160 drivers out of service for such things as driving too many hours, falsifying logbooks or drinking alcohol.
Most truckers operate safely, however, and those who haul hazardous materials, which requires certification, generally do the best.
"Pretty much they're the best trucks on the roadway. They usually run very good tires. They have impeccable maintenance records," said DPS Sgt. David Nilson.
"Where the issue lies is with the human element. And even if a driver is within hours and operating normally and within the law, everybody makes mistakes."
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As paramedic Rob Arnold arrived at the Picacho Peak crash site, another paramedic was treating Yongbanthom for her burns.
The driver of the car, Ron Agnick, was least injured and stood in the median with the couple's son. Arnold saw that the little boy had an abrasion on his face from hitting the pavement and burns on his legs.
Arnold took the boy in his arms and carried him to the ambulance for treatment and to prepare him to be sent to a hospital.
Soon someone advised Arnold to look at a DPS officer "who was complaining of burning to his throat," Arnold recalled. A firefighter appeared at the ambulance and started vomiting. The ambulance driver's eyes began to burn.
That's when Arnold realized they better get out of there and pulled farther back from the burning trailer.
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The threat from hazmat trucks is relatively minor compared to other motor vehicle accidents. Last year there were 29 hazmat crashes in Arizona, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reported.
They included seven "serious incidents" on Arizona roads last year that hospitalized one person and caused damage of more than $1.58 million, the federal Hazardous Materials Information System recorded. That placed Arizona ninth among states that contributed to the nation's more than $1 billion in hazmat damage.
But in a crowded area, even one toxic or explosive crash has the potential to do much greater harm than a crash that does not involve hazardous materials.
"When a truck does crash, because of their size there's a lot of carnage involved, and when hazmat's involved it just doubles the problem," said Officer Travis Qualls, a hazmat coordinator for the DPS.
In the worst case, depending on the weather and rate of release, one tanker truck of gasoline could kill people up to 1.8 miles from an Interstate 10 crash site and could sicken people up to 3.1 miles away, state emergency-response officials found when they commissioned a study last fall.
In a more likely scenario, the gas could be fatal up to a tenth of a mile from the highway and could harm people who breathe it nearly a mile away.
Along the Interstate 10/Interstate 8 corridor from New Mexico to California, the study, by AMEC Earth & Environmental Inc., also found the most hazmat where I-10 meets I-8 between Casa Grande and Tucson. Trucks bearing hazmat placards came through at a rate of 12 per hour.
The next busiest location was where I-10 meets Interstate 19 on Tucson's South Side, which saw nine trucks per hour.
Surveyors counted 78 different hazardous cargos being hauled along I-10. The most common were explosive gasoline, butane and combustible liquid, but they also noted ultra-hazardous cargos that could spread from a crash site as a deadly cloud.
Nearly one-third of trucks carrying hazardous materials failed to stop at the San Simon port of entry, on Arizona's border with New Mexico, even though many are required to stop. They escaped any inspection and increased the chances that a leaking load, bad brakes or other hazard could reach more-populated areas like Tucson.
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As he sped to the Picacho Peak crash site shortly after 2 p.m., Avra Valley Battalion Chief Steve Brooks heard dispatcher reports of three injured people, a car on fire and a truck with possible acids in the trailer.
When he reached Interstate 10, he saw black smoke billowing from the wrecks, but he could make out the black-and-white placard on the back of the trailer that warned it carried corrosive materials.
Brooks feared the breeze could shift the acrid smoke directly into a nearby trailer park. People were already coming to the edge of the park to watch, including a man with a child perched on his shoulders. Brooks had two of his firefighters station themselves upwind with oxygen masks and knock down the fire with a spray.
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With about 5 percent of the trucks on I-10 carrying hazmat, going to a crash scene without protective gear can be fatal.
"If they'd done that with methyl bromide or chlorine," said DPS officer Qualls, "they would have been part of the problem because they would have dropped in their tracks."
Four Avra Valley employees, along with some DPS and Southwest Ambulance employees who also went to the scene, went to area hospitals to be checked for inhalation injuries and to be decontaminated.
The hospital declared an emergency. That forced other patients to be diverted to other facilities. Chief Barry Gerber of the Avra Valley Fire District, whose agency commanded the scene, said none of the rescue workers was seriously injured and doctors released them all that day.
Four people complained to the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Assistant Director Mark Norton said the division began investigating in April and was still conducting interviews last week.
Chief Gerber said last week that he expects inspectors to issue citations, but he would not discuss specifics.
The district has started enforcing its policy of having all firefighters wear protective gear and treat every truck crash as a potential hazmat incident.
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After the fire was out, DPS Officer Greg Anderson walked up the highway and the dirt median, peered at the tire tracks and gouges and later questioned the drivers.
Truck driver Mueller told Anderson he was driving 72 mph and began changing lanes because a white SUV came up the on-ramp to merge onto the highway, the officer wrote in his report.
Halfway into the other lane, Mueller said, he noticed the family's sedan driving in the dirt median about a car length behind his truck, and he moved back into the right lane. Shortly after that, he said, he thought he'd blown a tire, but looked in the mirror and found that the car had caught up with his truck and collided with the trailer.
But car driver Agnick said he was driving beside the trailer when its center turn signal began to blink. Then the truck forced him into the median.
The sedan hurtled over the dirt and Agnick tried to stay in control.
"He said he was thinking about his baby getting hurt and that he should not touch the brakes and should keep his foot on the gas," the investigator wrote.
Finally Agnick "panicked because of his concern for the child" and touched the brakes. The car rotated 90 degrees, sped back onto the pavement and slammed into the side of the trailer.
The four-door sedan was trapped beneath the trailer up to the windshield. The car burned so fully that the officer couldn't tell what color it had been.
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The officer later cited the trucker for an unsafe lane change.
The driver, who officers said was a veteran trucker with a good record, and officials of his company, Minnesota-based R&R Transportation Inc., did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
At the time of the crash, records show, R&R was warning its 90 drivers to drive more safely because as a group they were getting too many tickets for moving violations, mainly for speeding. Although it was not considered a high-risk motor carrier, federal regulators had rated R&R to receive more-frequent roadside inspections.
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Twenty of Tucson's 50 largest trucking companies also have an "inspect" rating, nearly all due to truck or driver violations.
Federal transportation officials who regulate interstate trucking say they are developing safety strategies aimed more at preventing driver error, rather than focusing on the carriers or condition of trucks.
Yates, the Tucson hazmat trucker, said three companies turned him away before he found one that would let him haul hazardous materials for the first time.
"I was really shocked that I got the job with only one year's experience," he said.
In California, where an explosive tanker-truck crash destroyed part of a heavily traveled highway in April, lawmakers are considering a bill to require truckers to have spent three years as commercial drivers before hauling hazmat. National consumer groups, meanwhile, are pushing for more restrictions to prevent truckers from becoming fatigued.
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Not long ago, paramedic Rob Arnold was shopping at Wal-Mart. He noticed a small boy with burns on his legs, and his heart went out to the boy. Then he noticed the boy's mother. She bore burns on her arm, head and leg and still had to undergo skin grafts.
He walked over and asked whether she had been in the truck-car crash on I-10 near Picacho Peak. She wondered how he knew.
"I was the paramedic that treated your little boy," he replied.
And at that, Arnold recalled, "she got real emotional and gave me a big hug."
Pass safely
How do you safely pass a large truck in your passenger vehicle?
Sgt. David Nilson of the Arizona Department of Public Safety advises you not to pass until you look to the left, to the right and to the front of the truck for anything that might cause the driver to change lanes.
"When you see there is nothing to the left, right or front, go ahead and expeditiously pass the truck."
Here are some other pointers the Federal Highway Administration gleaned from the peeves of truck drivers:
• Don't stay long where truckers may not see you — like near the truck's left rear quarter or front right quarter, or directly in front of or behind the truck.
• Don't change lanes abruptly in front of a truck. They can't slow down as quickly as a car, and you could cause a wreck.
• Don't change lanes in front of a truck, then brake for traffic.
• Don't accelerate too fast from behind the truck and misjudge its speed.
— Enric Volante
"In my opinion, there are a lot of (truck) drivers out there who have no clue. Or they know what they're doing, but they take shortcuts."
Frank Yates, Tucson gasoline-tanker driver
178,806
Passenger cars in Arizona crashes in 2005
68,136
Pickup trucks and minibuses in Arizona crashes in 2005
4,418
Truck tractors and semitrailers in Arizona crashes in 2005
4,626