On August 29, an accident in Topeka caused two cars to break free from the hauler that was transporting them and fall from the overpass.
The accident happened on a Wednesday afternoon around 4 p.m. There was a pickup truck which was attached to a hauler that had three cars as its load. Something went wrong and two vehicles toppled off of the hauler and then fell from the overpass onto I-70 below.
The 42-year-old truck driver from Chicago who was traveling through Topeka at the time of the accident, ended up seeing the cars fall from the overpass. He was hauling a load of windows in his own rig, headed eastbound on I-70 when he glanced in his mirror. That’s when he saw the two vehicles with no one inside, falling one after the other from the overpass. “I was right under the two cars, so the timing was just perfect,” he
said regarding how he escaped the situation, unhurt. His rig did lose a mirror on the driver’s side, that got clipped by one of the falling cars. His fast reflexes, coupled with good timing, might have been what saved him. He was able to quickly swerve to the right and then get onto the shoulder, without losing control of his huge rig that was traveling at 70 mph on the highway. He claims the scene was like something out of a movie and the moment was surreal.
Thankfully there were no injuries reported as the result of this mishap.
It appears that the southbound pickup truck pulling a hauler with the three vehicles on it lost control while driving on the sweeping loop over I-70. He had just crossed the Westgate Bridge and was on the US-75 loop when he just lost control and hit the concrete bridge that was on his right. For about 60 or 70 feet the rig slid along the barrier, and eventually the hauler tipped onto the rail. One of the vehicles remained on the hauler but the other two went over the rail.
The two vehicles that dropped did not drop into traffic. They landed in a grassy ditch just south of I-70, though one of the cars crashed into another overpass as it fell.
It was not immediately clear to emergency responders what had happened but they soon discovered that the vehicles had no occupants. There was a lot for troopers to investigate - like whether speed or drug or alcohol impairment played a part in causing the accident.
Kansas Highway Patrol Lt. Harold Tillman said that the accident could have been much worse if the cars had fallen into oncoming traffic. “There could have been some serious injuries or deaths,” he said.
Tillman said that that curve can be dangerous for vehicles that are driving too fast.
The truck driver's years of training and experience made all the difference. Instead of staring straight ahead at the road he had been checking each of his rig’s mirrors. This is standard procedure for truck drivers. But if he had not been doing it he would not have seen the falling trucks.
If you or a loved one has been injured in a truck accident caused by another driver’s negligence, contact a Missouri truck accident attorney. You may be entitled to compensatory damages resulting from the accident.
