Yikes, oh my gosh! Not being funny or anything, but did the tractor trailer in question have a ‘Mansfield bar’ structure installed?
The outcome could have been tragic, and thank goodness you’re here to tell us about it.
I made the mistake of discussing my driving in an upper division/graduate computer science class I was teaching. I told the class that when learning to use a new software, learn enough of the essentials to get you going. After you can get the software to do a specific task, then you can work with the special features. I gave the following analogy:il
It’s like driving a car. I only know four things: 1)If I turn the steering wheel clockwise, the car goes to the right; 2) If I turn the wheel counterclockwise, the car goes to the left; 3) the right pedal makes it go; 4) the left pedal makes it stop. Knowing these 4 things, I can drive anyplace I need to go. I have no knowledge of how the heating and air conditioning works. My wife has it set so I roast in the winter and freeze in the summer. My son has the radio set on a rock station at 100 decibels and I don’t know how to turn it off. I have no idea how to operate the headlights or windshield wipers, but I wouldn’t use them anyway, because headlights and windshield wipers are for wimps. The four features of the car are all I need to know to get me where I want to go.
My analogy was lost on one graduate student. My wife was an administrator in the graduate office. The student came in with an enrollment question. After Mrs. Triedaq answered his question, he saw my picture on her desk. “Does your husband really drive the car without ever turning on the headlights or windshield wipers?”
When my wife came home that evening, she said “I got thecm strangest question from a student about how you drive”.
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They were not required until 1998, and were very rare until at least the '80s. Do the math, and you should realize that this federally-mandated safety device did not exist at the time of that accident.
Sorry.
I had little to go on in figuring out what decade, at least, this crash happened.
I guess it’s a good thing you were going slower at the time.
Wait, the Mansfield tragedy itself happened in the ‘60s. How did it take so long to mandate those bars? I’m sure some truck builders proactively installed them way before the 1990s.
Even graduate students may lack a sarcasm detector.
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@VDCdriver I had a 25 year old car that I drove to campus. I was teaching a general studies computer science class and one of our projects concerned computing interest on a loan. I made up a problem with the going interest rate on an automobile loan. I had them figure the monthly payments on a five year loan of $25,000 on a $30,000 car where the trade-in was worth $5000. The students could not believe the amount of interest they had to pay to borrow $25,000. One student in class piped up “Mr. Triedaq, is that why you drive that old heap?
I responded, “Have I ever been late or didn’t make it to this eight a.m. class even in the days we had temperature below zero? My old car started right up and got me here. Why would I need anything newer”?
I then said that a car is not investment. The car will depreciate–it loses value. Make a real investment. Invest in yourselves. Invest your time in learning.
I had two students come up after class and thank me for my class presentation. One student said he didn’t realize how much it cost to borrow money.
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I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood and I have one of the oldest vehicles in my neighborhood. My 14 Highlander still runs great so why do I need a new vehicle? More important to how much you make is how much you spend. I know people who buy a new car every 2-3 years. They always have a car loan. One time I sat down with one of these guys and I showed him over the past 30 years that I’ve spent well over $100,000 LESS in car purchases by keeping them for 8+ years instead of buying a new car every 2-3 years.
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I don’t do this very often, but here goes . . .
I like THIS version of you better, than the earlier one from several months back
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Those are called context clues. It should have been fairly obvious that I was referring to an incident that took place ~60 years ago.
You would have to ask Congress and/or NHTSA for that answer.
I thought I made a mistake once, turns out I was wrong.
badumbum…
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Thank you.
I am trying, lol!
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For someone with the issues and disabilities, like myself, the obvious is rarely so obvious.
It’s something I’ve lived with for decades, and probably hurt my work performance.
As for the Mansfield bars, it does seem odd that they garnered that nickname in the 1990s, neary thirty years after the crash that claimed Jane Mansfield.
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That is very impressive and draw-dropping streak, VDCdriver.
I tend to run into trouble every 3 years or so, whether that means hitting a curb at the drive-thru, hitting a pothole, and the infamous ones I shared here, etc.
Knocking on wood, and I’m not bragging as I’m aware this can happen to me at any given moment: I have never caused an accident involving another vehicle.
Since joining CarTalk, I can confidently say my driving behavior has drastically improved; the harsh critics, mocking and sometimes gentle lessons received from this community stay in the back of my head while I’m around the wheels.
Of course I’m not inviting more mocking and rudeness when attempting to help an individual; rather, I’m saying I looked deeply into what the community introduced to my eyes and from there I worked on those areas
This is why I’m very open to discussing mistakes, admit to mistakes so improvement can be achieved
You wanted us to include hitting a pothole?
In that case, I’ve many many mistakes over the years, and until someone figures-out how to stop the freeze/thaw/freeze cycle from damaging the pavement, I will continue to make some mistakes–along with everyone else who lives in The Northeast.
I was about 19 and driving my 1972 SS/RS Camaro, cruising with friends with their cars and doing a little street racing. (That could be a mistake) It was about 1:00 in the morning and heading home. I took a short cut on some back roads. Just before I came to a train track crossing, the lights came on and the gates came down. so, I am stopped and waiting for the train to come by. there are warehouses on my left and a cemetery on my right. I waited there for a good 20 minutes and no train. I got out of my car and walked up to the track and looked both ways to see if I can see a train. I could not see a train. so, I get back in my car and decided to go around the gates figuring the train gates were defective. As soon as I get to the other side, guess who was hiding and put his lights on.
I said to the officer, you seen me sitting there for 20 minutes and then get out to look both ways on the track. I said the gates are obviously defective. He says most likely. License, registration and insurance. He comes back 2 minutes later, and He hands me a ticket and says nice car and then walks away. I guess my mistake was not backing up a little and making a U-turn and go home another way. Hey, I was young and dumb.
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I have never had a chargeable accident in 6 decades of driving. Never totaled a car either. I have been hit a few times by other people but none were my fault. And none were serious. I had an elderly lady hit me a few years ago and that was the first since about 2007 or 2008.
Now racing is another story…. One serious crash when my left front wheel broke the hub and departed. The tire wall prevented more serious damage but I smacked it head on at about 50 mph. I have made minor contact a few times while racing with hard feelings after only once. I apologized and that was the end. My crew used to shake their heads when I would emerge from multi car spins and off tracks happening in front of me at full throttle gaining position.
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Well, I have no problem sharing my younger brother’s first accident and he was not even driving… I taught him to drive on my first car, a '54 Dodge Meadowbrook with the Red Ram Hemi with a three-speed column shift. (I’ve often written about this car…) He became very used to the standard and parking it by backing it down the driveway, turning the engine off, leaving it in reverse and yanking out the hand brake (T-handle under the center of the dash).
When he got his license in '68, he bought a '59 Pontiac Catalina, Big V-8 with an automatic. The first time he drove it home, like always, he backed down the driveway, turned it off and left it in gear. The emergency/parking brake on this car was on left side, under the dash, foot brake, and he had not yet developed the habit of applying it… (Big Mistake…)
He hops out, spinning the keys on a keyring around his finger and yells over to me, but I’m not really listening because I am yelling back at him, “Your car is rolling backwards…”
He turns and runs to the car, jerks the door open just as the back of the car rolls into the doors of our old wooden garage, those old doors folded in and as the car kept rolling, he dives inside, just before the open door strikes the garage framework and they held, causing the car’s door to swing all the way around to the front fender.
When the car finally came to a stop, the front door left a dent on the front fender, the interior door handle was ripped off by the garage frame, laying on the ground, and the only way to get the car out of the garage now was to unbolt the door hinges off the frame, which left the frame very much bent around towards the front…
He took the car with the door in the trunk to several body shops and none were willing to take on the job, not for an almost 10-years old car that only cost $75 to begin with. He sold that car for about $20 for it’s good engine and transmission…
So, who else can beat having their first car accident when they were not even driving? Being a passenger does not count, even though one could say my brother was only a passenger at the time as he was only along for the ride… L 
L . . .
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Rear underride protection on commercial trailers was common long before 1998, I suspect the regulation was in response to the unsafe trucks crossing the border from Mexico during the early years of NAFTA.
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Mansfield Bar/ Underride Protection Bars required since 1968
Mansfield Bar with side protection/ Underride Protection Bars with side protection required on trailers built after 1997
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