MANSFIELD, Mass. —
A driver is dead after a fiery crash involving a pickup truck and a tractor-trailer on Interstate 95 early Saturday.
State police said they responded to a report of a crash near the rest area in Mansfield around 5:30 a.m. and found a truck had hit a disabled tractor-trailer in the breakdown lane. The truck caught fire as a result of the crash.
The driver of the truck was pronounced dead at the scene. State police have not identified the driver.
A preliminary investigation indicates the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed in the breakdown lane before the crash.
The driver of the tractor-trailer, a 56-year-old man from Providence, Rhode Island, suffered minor injuries and refused immediate medical treatment.
The right two lanes of I-95 were closed as a result of the investigation.
I wonder if the truck driver was driving under the influence. Is I95 already backed up that early in the morning? I can’t think of any other reason why the pickup would be running the breakdown lane (well, other than a deliberate suicide attempt)
My guess is that it was a bit backed up and this idiot wanted to go faster and hit the breakdown lane. I don’t think breakdown travel is legal on weekends.
To those unfamiliar with this, MA allows travel in the breakdown lanes on certain highways and certain times. Probably one of the most idiotic laws ever passed.
I know about that idiotic law from many year’s of driving truck every time I was there & saw all the car’s traveling in the breakdown lanes I always wondered what you were expected to do in case of a breakdown.
yes, I try to stay off those highways at rush hour. And definitely stay away from the breakdown lane.
If I had a breakdown, I don’t know what I’d do. Pull over and get out of the car is best, but stopping in the breakdown lane runs a high risk (as that truck driver knows) and getting out of the car is also high risk. Should I take the time to scramble out of the passenger side or get out on the driver’s side? Both risky.
5:30 on a Saturday morning means traffic would be quite light. I wonder if the driver of the truck fell asleep and that’s what got him in the breakdown lane.
Tom and Ray riffed on driving in the breakdown lane on a recent show. They weren’t talking about high speed driving, but using it for slow speed maneuvering past traffic jams on the narrow road to Cape Code. Ray said “no”, and Tom was a little more flexible as I recall. He said prior he had used to maneuver his car to block other people behind him from doing it, but then decided it was such a common thing he might as well join in. So the next time a traffic jam occurred on his way to the Cape, he moved to the break down lane and slowly proceeded for a few cars, when a guy in a pickup truck saw what he was doing and pulled his truck to the right and blocked his path . … lol …
Sorry, Bing. They almost always mate/spawn first, then die. Thus assuring the next generation of misfits. I am beginning to doubt Darwin, it seems there are traits that you just can not breed out.
Aside from the idiots who make a conscious decision to drive in the breakdown lane/shoulder, we have the ongoing problem of drivers who–for unknown reasons–suddenly swerve into that lane, hitting a parked vehicle. Just in the past week, there have been two fatal incidents of that type in my state, and in the second instance, the vehicle that was hit on the shoulder was a tow truck that had its warning lights illuminated.
I think many drivers have very poor situational awareness. They assume all cars on road are moving. They see a car stopped on shoulder and rear end it. But than why do they rear end cop cars with flashing red lights also?
