Perth Amboy, New Jersey (NewYorkInjuryNews.com – News Report) –What are the chances of two extremely large trucks colliding with each other on the roadway? Pretty good, seeming that they are extremely wide vehicles, travel on the highways at accelerated speeds and there are about 15.5 million trucks operating in the United States. 1.9 million are tractor-trailers. Also, this isn’t the first it has happened. Just look at these statistics from 2006, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS), and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System:
* 4,568 large truck crashes resulting in fatal injuries
* 129,494 large trucks involved in crashes where no fatalities resulted
* 81,312 injuries due to crashes with large trucks
* 54,104 large trucks involved in crashes resulting in injury
This Monday, a New Jersey Department of Transportation construction truck collided with an 18-wheeler. New Jersey Police Captain, Al Della Fave, reported that the tanker truck driver and two DOT workers had non-life-threatening injuries and luckily it was the injured DOT worker that pulled the tanker driver out of the truck before it burst into flames. An additional benefit in the accident was that the tanker was empty but the residue from previous heating oil transport sparked small flames and explosions.
What is significant about this accident is that it forced city officials to become aware of a need – the need to open the landfill roads in Fresh Kills in cases of emergency. The recent accident was reminiscent of another in 2002, when a gas tanker broke down on the Staten Island side of the Outer bridge, at the entrance to the Korean War Veterans Parkway. With the imminent fear of a gas leak, the need to get citizens out of the danger zone was urgent. Traffic could have been handled more efficiently if the landfill roads in Fresh Kills had been open at that time. Traveling motorists and emergency vehicles would have had a quicker and more direct route and that means the prevention of citizens lives.
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