Truck Crash Colorado - With Videos

It’s reported that the driver admitted to driving 85mph when his brakes failed.....

He wasn't doing 85 when they showed him from behind swerving all over the road , though. That's what odd about it. Why was he swerving all over the place? It didn't seem he wasn't going any faster than the truck that was calmly following him and his brakes weren't smoking at the time.

Weird.

Lastest article i believe.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/04/27/us/colorado-crash-suspect/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

More detail about the moments before Poor guy's attorney thinks truck was leaking brake fluid.

Colorado Truck crash

Poor guy's attorney thinks truck was leaking brake fluid.

OMG, that attorney is not going to help much!

Poor guy's attorney thinks truck was leaking brake fluid.

Tractor trailers brakes use SAIL BOAT FUEL, not BRAKE FLUID. Silly Attorney!

I would like to think if this ever happened to anyone in this forum the title of the article would of read "Driver closed his eyes before he hit runaway ramp". That still gets me. Wonder how much training he had prior. Did it say anywhere how long he was driving before this? Company needs to be looked at as well.

My theory here is that he is only 23 so at the most he’s had 2 years of experience but I doubt he had half that. He’s probably been out by himself for a few months and might have never gone down a mountain. I’m speculating here as to his experience but I don’t think he knew what he was doing. The video showed him swerving everywhere and it showed him miss a run off ramp. I don’t want to blame the company but he shouldn’t have been out there without more training. At least he shouldn’t have been routed that way going down that mountain with a heavy load. Just my 2 cents.

Wonder how much training he had prior. Did it say anywhere how long he was driving before this? Company needs to be looked at as well.

I don’t want to blame the company but he shouldn’t have been out there without more training. At least he shouldn’t have been routed that way going down that mountain with a heavy load. Just my 2 cents.

We're all speculating because that's all we can do at this point. Let's be real about one thing though, it takes more than our training to make it out here. This job is safety sensitive. It requires a lot of focus, diligence, a commitment to safety, and good old common sense. I can't lay the blame on the company. They have no guidelines to go by for sufficient training. They all get by with what works for most of us. We all know how brief and fast paced our own training was. I'm confident we will one day have a federally established set of guidelines for training, but we will still have accidents of this magnitude. Training is only a small part of what prevents these occurrences.

It doesn't take a lot of sense to know how you go down a mountain without smoking your brakes, yet we've all seen someone doing it. To be honest (at least in my own observations) it's typically experienced drivers who take steep descents going way too fast. They either allow themselves to be in too big a hurry, or they're overconfident in their skills. The really bad truck accidents like this are typically caused by experienced drivers. Rookies are mostly involved in minor incidents like backing accidents or low speed accidents like failing to realize the severity of the "off tracking" of their trailer.

This accident could be analyzed much better if we had a driver facing camera involved. I know most of you don't like them, but this is an excellent example of their value. Any data that can be gathered from the truck's equipment such as the Quallcomm or GPS will help unravel what went wrong here. Brakes don't typically fail unless they are misused. Trucks don't typically travel down a mountain swerving all over the place. Everything points to the driver's fault in my opinion. There's enough video to paint a pretty bad picture for the driver.

I don't recall my first year being routed any differently because I was a rookie, nor did they avoid having me take heavy loads. I was always expected to step up and do my job with a cautious professional approach. Our training is somewhat limited, but for the most part it's sufficient. You always hear the old times in driver lounges complaining about how these new drivers are nothing but "steering wheel holders." They will go on and on about the poor training now days. But the truth is that those old timers never had near the training that most new drivers today go through.

It takes a while to learn how to operate efficiently and safely. This is a fairly new driver just judging by his age. When I was new I was hyper safety conscious. You have got to realize how much collateral damage a big rig can cause. That's what seems to be lacking here with this driver. He's already pointing to things like his brakes failing, his attorney is wanting to blame it on some sort of mechanical failure. These class 8 trucks are extremely reliable when maintained and operated properly. They are dangerous when you do otherwise.

When the driver completely avoided the run away ramp, his tales of mechanical failure kind of fall apart for me. The first thing I'd want to do is get that rig off the road and stopped. The easiest way to accomplish that goal is to take that runaway ramp. All his actions after that appear to be panic or total distraction. This could have been easily avoided. It's totally preventable, and that's going to bite hard in court.

I do agree it's pure speculation and I do agree it can happen to any driver regardless of age, race, experience etc. But for me I would be VERY surprised if he got anywhere near company paid caliber training or if this wasn't his first time going down a mountain of that grade. That's all I was trying to say. And I actually was routed differently as a rookie while on Dollar Tree or at least it seemed that way.

The driver had to use an interpreter at his first court hearing. He does not speak, nor can he read English.