A trucking accident in late August resulted in a partial closure of Interstate highway 94 near Ypsilanti, Michigan. According to authorities and dispatchers, the accident was reported around 8:40 a.m., right in the middle of morning rush hour traffic. This accident had an unusual effect in that the road blockage didn’t occur until it was time to recover the vehicle.
Immediately after the accident, traffic was reported as moving slowly, mainly due to rubber-necking, but no lanes were actually blocked following the crash. Dispatchers sent recovery crews to the scene around 9:00 a.m. It was at this point that police closed all but one lane on I-94 eastbound, in order to get space for unloading the truck. This required unloading the fully-stocked truck of over 30,000 pounds of liquor.
Since the truck was rolled over near a ditch, support crews had to unload the vehicle by hand before it could be safely righted. Police contacted local news sources and asked drivers to avoid the area for several hours while the truck was unloaded and the road remained stuck at only one lane of operating traffic.
Two lanes were opened by 11:30, but the extensive mess and heavy backup of traffic ensured that the commute through the area would remain slow for hours.
The cause of the accident was only determined near noon that day. A passenger car lost control due to hydroplaning on the wet road, causing it to hit the semi. This caused the driver of the semi truck to lose control and leave the road. While this accident was not the semi truck driver’s fault, it does illustrate the difficulty in controlling semi trucks after an impact from a much smaller vehicle.
The driver of the semi suffered only minor shoulder injuries, and no one in the passenger car was injured in the accident.
