146. Trucking – Truck Explosion Closes I 65

In this episode of Julia's Trucking Cafe, I discuss what happened to cause a semi truck to explode closing Interstate 65! I also discuss other stories that have made the headlines in the trucking news. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support the show, please consider making a one-time donation, please visit Paypal.Me   Music by: Heyday Highway@Epidemic Sound.com  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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(00:34):
nup lap.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Nap lap.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
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Speaker 2 (00:50):
NACKA good evening, everybody house, everybody doing. I had to

(01:35):
make a quick adjustment before I start the stream. We
have lots of news to get to this evening, from
a snazzy new Florida Highway Patrol vehicle to a new
pilot that's opening up, to San Antonio restricting legal truck parking,

(01:57):
to police cruisers being struck by a SMI, to Massachusetts
State Patrol pleading guilty in CDLs scheme, all kinds of
stuff in the news, to drugs being substances being seized.

(02:20):
It can't say the D word on YouTube to a
how what happened with I sixty five being closed? And
how you know what happened for that truck to explode,
and a bunch of other news to get to, so

(02:42):
let's get right to it. Thank you so much for
joining me this evening, taking time out of your evening
to listen to all the news that's going on in
the truck and industry. Around the country, police cruisers reportedly
struck during attractive trailer pursuit. In North Carolina, tractor trailer

(03:07):
led police on pursuit, resulting in a crash and injuries.
According to the North Carolina Highway Patrol, police pursuit took
a Semitra took place on Friday morning Rosemond, North Carolina.
The pursuit excuse me, resulted in crash and injuries, The

(03:28):
North Carolina State Patrol told the local news outlet. A
video that was captured the scene appears to show a
police cruiser with lights activated to suffered significant damage. The
Transylvania Times, a local news outlet, reports that North Carolina
State Patrol and Transylvania County Sheriff's Department were struck by

(03:51):
the truck during the pursuit, and that the driver of
the truck was arrested after the truck crashed near a
mobile home. We were saying was there's a high speed
chase involving a semi truck and trailer started in Brevard
and ended in Rosmin when the truck crashed into the
front yard of a mobile home and the truck struck

(04:11):
vehicles from North Carolina State Highway patrol and the county sheriffs.
Like I just mentioned, during the chase before it lost
control and crashed near Rosmond High School. They are not
saying why they pursued the semi. It doesn't state in
the article at all, you know, why were they chasing

(04:33):
him to begin with, which is kind of silly. I think,
if you're gonna report on something, go ahead. And I
don't write the news. I just report on it. So
I research all over the internet for different things going
on out in the trucking industry. But I don't write

(04:55):
the articles. Somebody else does. So I'm just sharing information
and is all I'm doing. And in this next story
of FedEx rig hauling doubles fatally strikes workers that were
picking up construction cones, I hope everybody can hear me. Okay,
a person is dead after a FedEx Semi truck hauling

(05:19):
double trailers struck workers picking up the construction cones. Incident
happened back the middle of April on East found side
of Route five eighty one in Pennsylvania about four point
thirty in the morning. FedEx Semi drove through a work
zone and crashed into a construction vehicle. The crash trapped

(05:42):
two people inside of the truck. Individuals were working to
pick up the cones at the time of the crash.
At least one person was extra extricated from the vehicle
and transported to the hospital with unspecified injuries. The second
person inside the vehicle passed away of their injuries. The

(06:02):
cause of the crash was not released and the accident
was still under investigation. So what it was according to
some of other photos. If you see in the photo
way in the back behind the semi right here, as
I'm showing on the screen, that was the pickup truck

(06:23):
that got hit. It's actually sideswiped by this semi. And
they were pulling a trailer that they were standing in
the back of the trailer, and they were picking up cones,
which they liked to do and have do a lot
of construction work wee hours of the morning. So they
were picking up the cones and this guy apparently didn't

(06:46):
see them or I don't know what happened, but and
then struck that trailer. And our next story is a
trucker his face seeing negligent homicide charges after running over
a construction worker. Now this is two separate incidences truck

(07:11):
that bed charged with negligent homicide a truck driver excuse me,
after running over construction worker. This happened in West Virginia,
and this happened about eleven o'clock in the morning on
Interstate seventy seven on the West Virginia Turnpike just south
of Charleston, West Virginia. I've been up and down that
highway a lot. So it looks like from the picture

(07:34):
that they had were working on the highway and they
had one lane closed down because it's you know, four lane,
two lane in each direction, so they had one of
the lanes closed down, and according to the local news there,
he failed to move into the correct lane in the
work zone and was forced to swerve to avoid colliding

(07:58):
with a dump truck that was in the construction zone,
and he ran over a turnpike worker who was patching
a hole in the driveway or excuse me, in the roadway,
not driveway, in the roadway. So you're a lot of times,
what they'll do with these potholes, as a lot of
you see around the country, is they'll dig them out,

(08:19):
clean them out, fill them with gravel, whatever they need
to do, and then cover them by hand with a shovel,
then they'll cover them with blacktop. And apparently that's what
this worker was doing and the truck ended up hitting him.
Turnpike worker passed away a short time after the accident.
He was only identified as a man in his twenties.

(08:45):
The truck driver stopped at the scene and cooperated with release,
and he was then charged with negligent homicide. Criminal complaint
alleges that there's a video of the truck driver looking
down as he entered the work zone. He told investigators,
of course, that he was not on his phone prior

(09:05):
to the crash. The police are reviewing the video from
the dash cam on the semi and records from his
cell phone. Now, as I mentioned in a different show
that anymore with voice to text, and we have to

(09:29):
wear a wireless headset. In other words, you can't have
a wire hanging down. And on that wireless headset, there's
an option and Siri on Apple phones and I believe
Alexa on Android phones you can do voice to text,
So off of house officers going to see if you
were texting or not. If you can use speech to text,

(09:51):
you really have to get into the app at all
in order to find out. I think I don't even
know if they can differentiate if it's voice detext or
you know you were typing. I really don't know. So
our next story is San Antonio is starting to restrict

(10:13):
legal truck parking based on three hundred and eleven complaints.
Now I also talked about this in my last episode.
The city of San Antonio will start restricting legal truck parking,
and this started the weekend of the nineteenth I believe, yes,

(10:35):
April nineteenth, so it was a couple of weeks ago.
Already from parking on city streets based on three hundred
and eleven complaints. They already have posted signs truck parking
and those areas are now banned based on resident complaints

(10:55):
to the city they don't like to hear the roar,
the engine idling, and the refrigerated trailers idling and this
kind of thing. The warning citations will be issued until
June eighteenth, and then after June eighteenth, if you still
are going to violate, then you're going to get a fine,

(11:17):
a five hundred dollars fine. Forty parking signs will be
placed on the different streets around San Antonio City and
the fine definitely went up from like a you know,
up to five hundred dollars and Kansas Highway Patrol names

(11:40):
eight people that passed in seventy one vehicle pilop on
Interstate seventy. Kansas Highway Patrol has released identities of eight
people killed in this massive pilop that happened back in March.
They named the eight people killed in March pilop that

(12:01):
occurred near Goodland, Kansas. It was Larry Smith from Kansas,
Dawson Hogan from Kansas, Bill can pronounce that name. Pennsylvania
carlos are that of Oklahoma, Manual aler Khan from Kansas,

(12:26):
Stephanie Purcell from Indiana, Mario Juarez from Kansas, and Giovanni
Stephen from Michigan. They also provided details on the progress
of the investigation into the pilop. Troopers say that at
around three point thirty on March fourteenth, the Highway Patrol
responded to a multi vehicle crash mass casualty massive casualty

(12:50):
crash on I seventy between mile markers twenty eight point
one and twenty eight point three, about nine miles east
of Goodland, Kansas. That a total of seventy one vehicles
collided in both the eastbound and westbound lanes. Beyond the
eight fatalities, forty six other people were hospitalized with injuries. Quote.

(13:13):
Multiple motor vehicle collision reports were completed will be completed
to document and separate the collisions that occurred within the event.
Investigators believe the separate collisions occurred between the times of
three twenty pm and three point thirty Due to the
extreme circumstances, the exact sequence of events is currently under investigation.

(13:36):
Following the crash, the fire chief said, I must say
yesterday was the toughest and most emotional draining experience in
his twenty two years of being in the fire service.
Trying to manage multiple agencies, over thirty patients, triaging patients,
working over fifty five vehicles, fighting the wind, dirt so

(13:57):
bad you couldn't even see over fifty to one hundred
feet in front of you, and trying to keep my
cruise and myself safe was just something to process. I
don't think people realize a dedication these men and women
give to make this community safe and secure. Now. I
believe back then there was such wind going through that area.

(14:20):
At that time, there was a lot of tornadoes back
in March. Even I live in north Mississippi, but even
through middle to southern Mississippi there was a lot of tornadoes.
I think we had like thirty tornadoes within a day
or two period. One town got hit four times in
one evening, so it was just really ridiculous. Then I'm

(14:45):
wondering if that isn't the same storm system that caused
this fatality wreck It was that weather. It was just nuts.
Also in the description on twit, I'm also on Twitch now,
just as an aside, if you'd like. If you're on Twitch,

(15:06):
it's mainly a gaming platform, but they have podcasts as well.
So if you're watching this and you're from a different
country and you're on Twitch for gaming, if you wouldn't
mind stopping over and liking the channeler Julia's Trucking Cafe
and would be podcast and I would greatly appreciate it
to follow the channel there. This video would also be

(15:29):
on their Facebook and on YouTube. But in those descriptions,
there is a really neat young man by the name
of Max who has a weather channel on YouTube, max Velocity,
that he actually follows along with other storm chasers. He's

(15:51):
not a storm chaser, He just is graduating college for
to be a meteorologist and has his own platform on YouTube.
But he also has storm chasers that report on severe
weather tornadoes all across the country. So it's really cool
to see what's going on. And the reason why I

(16:14):
bring that up is because what I just said about
this accident and about all the storms that went through
my area back in March, it was neat to be
able to track the storms and see are they coming
my way? I got to go skirt around me. I
had the end of March, or actually even into April,

(16:35):
I had three different tornadoes right around where I live.
One was ten miles to the east to me, one
was taf two miles to the west to me, getting
them too reversed. And then one tornado went right over
my building and that was nuts. It didn't have a

(16:56):
tail to touch down, but it's still went over my building.
It was just crazy. But I digress, So let's get
back to the news now. This is one of the
stories I was talking about at the beginning, that a
second former Massachusetts trooper is guilty in a CDL skills

(17:19):
test bribery conspiracy. A former Massachusetts State Police trooper has
become the third person to admit to participating in a
scheme to provide passing Commercial Driver's Licensed Skill test scores
to applicants in return for bribes. This happened on April eleventh.

(17:41):
This Perry A. Mendez, sixty four, pled guilty to one
count of conspiracy to falsify records, three counts of falsified records,
and two counts of making false statements. Former Trooper Calvin
Butner and civilian co defender Eric Matheson both pled guilty
to charges related to their roles in the CDL skill

(18:04):
test scheme. A total of six people were arrested and
charged back in January excuse me in the connection with
the scheme, Officials say that between May of twenty nineteen
and January of twenty twenty three, Mendes and others conspired
to give passing skills test scores to at least seventeen

(18:25):
CDL applicants, regardless of whether they passed the written test
or not. They used code words such as golden handshake
or golden to designate CDL applicants who would be given
preferential treatment at his plea hearing. Officials say that Mendez
admitted to his role in the alleged conspiracy, including that

(18:46):
he cut skill tests short for golden applicants, that he
entered false information on CDL score sheets indicating that certain
applicants had passed the skills test when they had not,
and he reported passing scores for applicants he knew had
never taken the skills test. So this is the kind

(19:06):
of drivers that we have among us people. So it's
just amazing how crooked even law enforcement is as simple
as a passing to get a driver's license or a
commercial driver's license, which is a federal driver's license. Now

(19:29):
not just state, it's nationwide, and they are bribing officials
to have whoever pass. Matheson worked for a wastewater company
that required CDL drivers to operate delivery vehicles. He admitted
to conspire, saying what conspiring. Excuse me with troopers to

(19:52):
obtain CDLs for certain applicants associated with the water company
in exchange for bribes of free inv from the water companies,
such as a case of bottled Fiji Voss and Essentia Water,
cases of bottled Arizona iced tea, coffee, and tea products,
all of which Matheson delivered to an office trailer at

(20:13):
the CD test site in Stoton that's in Massachusetts. If
convicted on the charge of conspiracy to commit extortion, Mendes
faces the sentence of up to twenty years in prison,
up to three years of supervised released, and a fine
of up to a quarter of a million, two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars. So I'm surprised he admitted to

(20:35):
it after I guess he finally got busted. But it
you know, they're not gonna say how did they bust them?
And in this story, a pilot travel center opens in Alabama,
adding seventy seven truck parking spots to their network. And
the reason why I bring these this up to is

(20:56):
mainly for people that are traveling besides truck drivers. You'd
like to have a place to use the restroom, a restaurant,
grab a bike to eat, you know, something to drink.
But it's also if you're not familiar, you haven't really
went through Alabama. It's in Winfield, Alabama. Not really quite

(21:18):
sure where that is. One second, let's see handy dandy
Google maps. Winfield, Alabama is off of twenty two. Okay,

(21:39):
if you take twenty two out of Tupelo. Going toward Birmingham,
you'll pass by Winfield, but they don't really say what
exit it is. Michael Span driving Windfield to Alabama, they
don't say what exited is off of twenty two. But

(22:01):
you could look on trucker paths. Use me, you could
look on trucker path for that. That's a good app
to have if you don't already know. And now twenty
that stretch of highway, I'm very well familiar with it.
It's just about an hour south of me. So from

(22:21):
Memphis it goes to Tupelo and then Tupolo to Birmingham. Well,
from Tupelow to Birmingham there's only two Loves that whole
stretch of highway, which is a couple of hours. So
now they have a pilot in the mix as well.
I am wondering if it isn't close to there's a

(22:44):
truck stop right there at Windfield, and I can't remember
the exit number in Alabama where it is. I think
it says sixty nine, I think, And then there's the
Loves at the one fourteen, and then there's another Loves,
so right before you get into Birmingham. So this pilot's

(23:09):
right off of Interstate twenty two, which was seventy eight
for the older drivers that know, used to be called
US Highway seventy eight. So I'm glad I looked that
up on Google Maps next time that I have to
go that direction. And in this story, a driver is

(23:34):
cider for your using the restroom where the little censored
sign is at a dot scale in California. And that's
also how could we say, now my brain just had

(23:59):
to shut off indecent exposure, That's the word I'm looking for.
The California Highway Patrol sighted a driver after catching him
in a compromising position at a commercial vehicle enforcement facility
in Lebeck. This happened right after taxes April sixteenth. It

(24:20):
was Don Grapevine. They also took to social media with
the reminder about choosing an appropriate spot to use the
restroom after he was caught relieving himself at their facility
off of I five. This guy thought he was all
good for pulling into our facility and wild watering our trees.

(24:41):
He was cited for this incident. He literally passed a
major exit with the Tayhone Outlet truck stop just two
miles before exiting entering the scalehouse facility, and they in
this post, they're saying, we have restrooms too. All you
have to do is ask to use them. We'll be

(25:03):
more than happy to let you use our restroom. And
I believe he wasn't a truck driver. If you look
at the photo, it was a car that pulled into
the inspection part of the scale, because that's truck parking

(25:27):
right there past them trees. You see that truck with
the hoodle opened. But he was He was in a
passenger car, so I wasn't wasn't a truck driver that
got busted. While this driver may not have chosen the
best place to go to the bathroom, lack of restroom
access for truck drivers has been a serious problem for

(25:49):
many years. The problem is so significant that a build
called Trucker Bathroom Access Act was introduced in the House
of Representatives in California earlier this month. If passed, the
bill would require that truck drivers be granted access to
restroom facilities when delivering, delivering or picking up a load.

(26:12):
That makes a good point because ever since COVID, truck
drivers aren't allowed to use the bathroom in warehouse facilities anymore,
and a lot of times they don't even give you
a portage on outside to use. And yeah, I've had
to use portagons and I've ran into some of them

(26:34):
that are pretty dog one nasty. Uh it's outside porta
pot and they're they're not very clean. You have to
take your clorox wipes and paper towels and your own
toilet paper and everything else with you. But anyway, in
this sad story, teenage sisters were cricketed critically injured after

(27:00):
failing to yield to a tanker truck. Two teenage sisters
were seriously injured after failing to yield to a semi
in Texas. This accident happened around seven point thirty in
the morning in Beaumont. According to the local news, a
Chevy pickup truck was driven by sixteen year old girl

(27:22):
who failed to yield after stopping at a stop sign
on LaBelle Road. The truck pulled in front of an
eastbound Peter Belt and was struck by the oncoming rig.
A sixteen year old and her thirteen year old sister
were transported to a local hospital with life threatening injuries.
I mean he t boned her. Thirty one year old

(27:45):
truck driver was also transported to the hospital. His injuries
were described as non life threatening. And then I believe yeah. Also,
the same truck driver is also continuing on with this story.

(28:06):
He is trying to call for change for this dangerous
intersection and discuss This article discusses a little bit further
what happened. The truck was driven by sixteen year old
Cali Purdle, pulled out in front of the oncoming tanker

(28:28):
driven by mister Broussard was unable to avoid the collision
with a pickup, causing a crash that left Bocli and
thirteen year old sister Jury seriously injured. He said they
were actually getting ready to turn, but they straightened up
brussards out of the accident. The front of my truck
literally smashed it right into the driver's side door. They

(28:51):
were both knocked out. Luckily, there were some ladies that
had seen the accident. If it wasn't for them, these
girls probably wouldn't still be here. If it wasn't for them,
we probably would be having a different conversation. They were
currently recovering in a hospital in Beaumont and Houston. Bruce
Ard just sustained cuts and bruises in the incident. He's

(29:16):
also participating in a community movement to bring change to
this dangerous intersection, which residents say has been a problem
in the past. Somebody can actually get killed, he said,
next time. The community has already submitted an official request
for a traffic light at the intersection and has gathered
hundreds of signatures on a petition in support of this plan.

(29:39):
Residents also say a four way stop sign would be
acceptable replacement to the current blinking red light. Either they
put up lights or they put it turn it into
a four way, said Brusard. Changes will not be made
until they do their traffic signal study, which and then
analyze the re salt, which could take months. So what

(30:03):
does somebody have to do die before you can appropriate
change without all your goofys bureaucratic studies. It's just just
ridiculous anymore. And here is another one of the stories

(30:25):
I talked about in the introduction. A Florida Highway patrol
adds a seized corvette to their patrol fleet. So no
matter how fast your vehicle can go, now their officers
are riding in style. I kind of wonder how many
officers are fighting over getting assign that car and if

(30:49):
they rotate, then who is going to drive it for
that week? They gave a public peak at a sleek
sports car the troopers will use for patrol and educational purposes.
April fifteenth, they announced the addition of a twenty twenty
three Chevy Corvette Stingray to the agency's fleet of patrol vehicles.

(31:13):
Says that the Corvette will be making an appearance of
educational outreach events in addition to use as a patrol vehicle.
Troopers say that the Vet was not purchased with state funds. Instead,
it was seized in collaboration with the DEA Task Force.
So they got it all decked out, painted up and everything,

(31:33):
and the lights put on it and stuff. And I'm
sure that you know, first single officer, it will be
a real chick magnet. And this tractor trailer hauling train
wheels burned to the ground on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Crash

(31:54):
that went boom. Two semis burned to the ground and
ash that made a boom on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This
crash happened around two o'clock in the afternoon back of
April fifteenth, between Quakertown and Lehigh Valley Exits in Pennsylvania
one second. According to the local news, the two rigs crash,

(32:25):
causing both commercial vehicles to catch on fire on the
northeast extension of the turnpike. Clean Up of the crash
force the closure of the roadway in the area for
about nine hours excuse me. The crash was cleared about
eleven o'clock that night. Residents who lived near the site

(32:45):
of the crash say the wreck created a lot of
smoke and noise on a day with a lot of wind. Quote,
all of a sudden, I just hear this loud baboom,
and I'm thinking, you know, what the heck is that?
Oh my, It's a sound that I kind of can't explain.
It sounded like like if you take a really big
drum really loud. It just kind of echoed, like, you know,

(33:08):
because there's a lot of hills out in that area
and everything, I heard this boom boom boom, and I'm thinking,
what's my neighbor doing? Added this Donna the God. I
hope to god nobody got hurt. The cause of the
crash is not known. No details were released regarding the injuries,
but the local news reports that no one was seriously hurt.

(33:30):
Thank goodness, one of the semi trucks was reporting hauling
train wheels and the other one was empty, so thank
goodness that the drivers were able to escape hopefully unharmed
as far as I know. And a Wyoming lawmaker tells

(33:52):
DOT to enforce the English language proficiency requirements for commercial
vehicle drivers and also President Trump last week also signed
an executive order requiring that all commercial vehicle drivers need

(34:12):
to take an English proficiency test and be able to
speak and read and write English. Wyoming lawmakers calling on
the DOT Department of Transportation to take action to ensure
that English Language Proficiency ELP requirements for commercial vehicle drivers

(34:33):
are enforced at a federal level. She penned a letter
to the Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, asking for them to
step up enforcement of existing requirements. Long standing federal rules
require English language for commercial drivers for the longest time.

(34:55):
When the CDL first came out, you could have a
translator read the written test to you and take the
test that way. In existing regulation that requires commercial vehicle
drivers to be able to read and speak the English
language succinctly to converse with the general public, to understand

(35:18):
highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, and
to respond to official inquiries, make entries on required reports
and records. She wrote, as you are well aware, lacking
the ability to read and communicate proficiently in English, particularly
as it relates to reading and understanding roadway signage, represents

(35:41):
a major safety issue for all drivers, which is precisely
why these regulations were promalgated in the first place. Yeah,
big words from truck driver. While acknowledging that there are
federal regulations on the books requiring ELP in order to
be eligible to operate a commercial vehicle, pointed out Obama

(36:01):
administration issued guidance superseding existing regulations and dedramatically loosening enforcement
against CMB drivers without an ELP, therefore placing millions of
American motorists in jeopardy. So that was the way back
in the Obama years they did that. It points out

(36:23):
to up ticket fatal truck crashes. It's twenty sixteen, which
we all know, and thirty seven fatal accidents in twenty
twenty two. While looking at this data, it's well within
reason to conclude that this guidance has played a factor
in the number of trucking accidents throughout the last several years.
Oh for for real. For the most part, since I've

(36:44):
been doing the show, I've noticed a large uptick in
semi truck accidents, auto stupidity, and also using your phone
instead of having you know, I've seen I don't know
how many drivers have their phone up to their ear.

(37:06):
It's a two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars fine
for the driver, ten thousand dollars for the company to
you to have your phone up to your ear instead
of using earbuds, speaker, wilers, headset. It's a chunk, but
they get away with it. I don't understand how. Excuse me.

(37:33):
It's been a day. Thank you so much for also
tuning in because we've had a severe thunderstorms roll through
last night. That's why the show didn't go on as
it should have been. So thank you so much for
still tuning in and viewing the show this evening. I

(37:56):
hope you're all enjoying it. Please subscribe, Please lie, Please
leave a comment any of the stories that you hear.
I'd like your take on it, what you think about
the legislation, where you think about these accidents, and anything
I talk about on this show. I'd greatly like to
read all the comments, good bad, Otherwise I really would

(38:20):
like your feedback, so please like, follow, and subscribe. I'm
like I said, I'm on Twitch, I'm on YouTube and
Facebook Live. And in this story, a truck driver has
passed away after a falling tree struck his semi on
Interstate sixty four in Virginia. This accident happened around three

(38:42):
point thirty in the afternoon on eastbound Interstate sixty four.
According to the local news, the semi was traveling in
the right lane when a large falling tree struck his
vehicle and the driver inside. The impact then sent the
semi veering off to the right side of the interstate

(39:04):
and that was yeah, that was a rock caller. Fifty
one year old driver Frank James Porter Lofton passed away
in the incident. Second driver then struck debris from the accident,
causing a crash with a third driver. So this whole
crash is under investigation. It wasn't an investigation by the

(39:25):
Virginia State Police. And there were no storms in the
area at the time, so that was weird. And it
was three point thirty in the afternoon. And it looked
like it was a pretty sunny day. So I mean,

(39:46):
you see his whole cab of his truck is smashed, like, wow,
my tablet's giving me a fit. Sorry, and deputy, these
are ticketing truckers for passing an Oregon waystation. You don't

(40:08):
pass up a waystation if they're opened unless you have prepass.
If you have prepass, prepass or easy pass, it's prepass.
I think I can't remember anymore. I've already been out
a truck in a year. I think easy passes tolls.

(40:31):
Prepass is where you could buy pass the scales. But
if they have that shut off, I mean I'm guilty
of it. So I've But now you see all these
officers lined up in a row, just waiting for you
to blow the scales. Several truckers who bypassed an Oregon

(40:52):
waystation were ticketed and educated during enforcement detail. Un Down,
a Sheriff's office partner with Oregon DOT and the Oregon
State Patrol to ticket truckers for bypassing Perry's Waystation near Lagronde.
Because bypassing the waystation is a constant problem, the agency

(41:14):
has decided to work together to educate the drivers of
these trailers. In total, fifteen commercial drivers were ticketed for
bypassing the scale. All commercial vehicles and vehicle combinations exceeding
twenty thousand pounds must stop and weigh at an open

(41:35):
scale when a sign is posted before the scale reads
all trucks over twenty thousand pounds next rite. All commercial
vehicles at vel co combos, whether a gross vehick weight
of ten thousand pounds or greater, must stop and weigh
at an open scale without this sign posted. So if
it's twenty thousand pounds over, then the smaller trucks don't

(41:57):
have to. When that sign is taken down, then everybody's
got to come through that's ten pounds or greater. The
following are exempt from the requirements of reporting and open
scale when directed to do soap by the open sign.
An empty log truck or a bumped pole trailer, you
know they have the big l's that they carry logs,

(42:21):
They don't have to. If the officers can see that
you're empty, you know, your flatbed log truck, that kind
of thing, then normally or you have easy pass or
I'm sorry that prepass, you can usually bypass them fire

(42:42):
equipment with a red warning lights or a Sirene operated
recreation vehicles for personal use bus unless required by signers
to enter the scale, and then military vehicles in a convoy.
These are all exempt from entering the scales and up next, Reckless,

(43:03):
careless and dangerous driving to be the focus of the
week long blitz that's coming here. Canada and Mexico Commercial
Vehicle Safety Alliance CBSA is gearing up for the Driver
for Focused enforcement operation taking place in July. This will

(43:27):
take place July thirteenth through the nineteenth, so mark your
calendars in Canada, Mexico and the US. During that operation
Safe Driver Week, law enforcement agencies will patrol both commercial
vehicle and passenger vehicle drivers looking for unsafe behaviors, including speeding,

(43:51):
distracted driving, following too closely, and drunk or drug driving.
Drivers cop performing any unsafer illegal beIN behaviors face a
citation or a warning. The area of emphasis for operations
Safe Driver Week twenty twenty five will be reckless, careless,
or dangerous driving. Reckless driving is defined as operating a

(44:13):
vehicle will wolfraw or want in disregard for the safety
of persons or property. Careless dangerous driving is defined as
operating a vehicle without due care and attention or reasonable
consideration for other motorists or people on the road. During
Safe Driver Week of twenty twenty four, the officers of

(44:36):
Canada and the US. Now this is both pulled over
eleven thousand vehicles and issued over two thousand tickets, citations
and over three thousand warnings to commercial motor vehicle and
passenger cars. So that's both for various unsafe driving. Now

(44:58):
there's also an International Row Check. Mark your calendars. May
thirteenth through the fifteenth, US Mexico and Canada largest targeted
enforcement program on commercial vehicles in the world. Were nearly
fifteen trucks and motor coaches inspected on average every minute
across North America. Then you're going to have the Break

(45:21):
Safety campaign. Break Safety Week is scheduled for August twenty
fourth through the thirtieth this year US Mexico and Canada.
They will be an unannounced one day break safety enforcement
initiative which may be held at any time. So International

(45:43):
Road Check is coming up next May thirteenth through the fifteenth.
Then this one in July which will be the thirteenth
through the nineteenth operation Safe Driver Week I will have
these reminders on my website at Julia's Truck at Cafe.
If you forget when they are please go to the website.

(46:05):
Jut the website down and I will have this up
on the website on the homepage of when International Road
Check is and Break Safety campaign and also this operation
Safe Driver's Week. This is the reason why another reason

(46:26):
why I do this podcast to give you all a
heads up on what you could be looking forward to
out on the highway while you're trying to do your
job safely. And in this story, three hundred and thirty
nine pounds of cocaine is seized from a Canada bound

(46:47):
commercial vehicle in Detroit, Michigan. US Customs and Border Protection
sees hundreds of pounds of illegal substances from a commercial
vehicle at a porta. This was seized back April fifteenth
in Detroit. Offici'll say that a commercial vehicle headed from

(47:09):
the US to Canada was selected for physical inspection. During
the search, officers discovered two duffel bags and four moving
boxes containing bricks of white substance that tested positive for cocaine.
Total weight of the seizure was three hundred and thirty
nine pounds the cocaine, truck and trailer were all seized.

(47:35):
They did not say how much a street value was
like they normally do. And a load of spilled plastic
pipes causes a six vehicle pile up and a brush fire.
What a mess. A load of spilled plastic pipe led
to a pileop involving six vehicles that caused a brush

(47:59):
fire in West Virginia. This accident happened just after midnight,
very early on April seventeenth, through West Virginia Turnpike. According
to local news, the semi was traveling north on the
West Virginia Turnpike near the sixty six mile marker when
it flipped, spilling its load of plastic pipes across the roadway.

(48:22):
They're into southbound Semis then crashed into the plastic pipe,
causing another rack that soon caught fire. The fire then
spread to the nearby brush and three more cars became
involved in all this mess. No one was hurt, thankfully,
in the accident, but the south southbound side of the

(48:42):
turnpike remained closed until after four o'clock that afternoon, so
it was like all day, all night, and all day.
The accident is still under investigation. No further information was released,
and I'm not really sure what kind if there was,

(49:03):
cebe pea pipe, you can't really tell. But yeah, that's
that's a vehicle door right up in the front, right here,
cursor right there, if you can see my cursor, that's
that's a vehicle. There's a vehicle door that is a mess,

(49:30):
and a driver that was involved in a fatal Colorado
crash is officially deported for the seventeenth time one seven
seventeen times, says Ice. My tablet's given me fits as

(49:54):
I mentioned. Truck driver involved in a deadly twenty twenty
four crash a col Colorado has been deported seventeen times.
Forty seven year old Ignatio Cruise Mendoza was detained by
US Immigration and Customs back in March, immediately after completing
seven months of a one year jail sentence for the

(50:16):
US two eighty five crash at Colorado. In June of
twenty twenty four, prosecutors proved that Cruise Mendoza was living
in the US as an undocumented immigrant that had been
removed forcibly or violently voluntarily I'm sorry sixteen times before,
and only had a valid CDL in Mexico. Mendoza was

(50:41):
detained by ICE on March thirtieth and was officially deported
to Mexico on the sixteenth. The average length of detention
for immigration violators accused of other crimes as approximately fifty
six days, so little month and a half, almost two months,
that's it. And then they turn him loose, and he

(51:04):
just keeps coming back over the border, So you know,
how's he doing that?

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Now?

Speaker 2 (51:15):
If you think that state's only patrol with squad cars,
you'd better think again. Wisconsin is using planes in aerial
enforcement and netted sixty seven traffic stops. Multiple law enforcement

(51:39):
agencies in Wisconsin partnered to conduct traffic enforcement operations. That
was the week of taxes again. Middle of April conducted
traffic enforcement on US twelve eighteen and Dane County Interchange
in an effort to prove safety in one of the
Wisconsin's busy highways. They had sixty seven traffic stops, four

(52:09):
at one hundred mile an hour violations, two operating well
intoxicated violations, nine flex lane violations, which means that hov lane.
I believe an average speed of traffic stops involving speeding
was eighty three miles an hour. Yeah, because everybody's coming
out of Chicago. They have their foot to the damn

(52:30):
floor and they think they're not going to get pulled over.
I grew up in Wisconsin ninety ninety four. Is they
think is a dog on Indy five hundred now? Because
since I lived in Mississippi twenty in Jackson fifty five,
I ten any major interstate, y'all think it's a freaking

(52:54):
Indy five hundred. Sorry, it's not. They plan to continue
traffic enforcement on the bet line throughout the year to
improve safety and deterred dangerous driving. About dang time. The
results of this recent enforcement effort make one thing clear.

(53:15):
People need to slow down and drive safely. They said
one hundred mile an hour speeds on the belt line
or anywhere is unacceptable to Shay. That type of driver
behavior puts everyone else in danger, makes our roads less safe.
Thank you to our Dane County law enforcement partners as
we continue working together to make the belt line safer

(53:35):
for drivers. Participating agencies include the State Patrol, Dane County
Sheriff's Office, and Madison Police Department, and Monona Manona. So
that's around Madison that the belt line around Madison, and

(53:57):
I have some people that's like, if you can, you know,
can't go five mile an hour. Five miles is fine.
You don't need to be doing eighty five ninety one
hundred miles an hour down the Interstate inn in a
sixty five. That's slap ridiculous and you're a danger. I'm sorry.
And in this story, a driver was texting and driving

(54:20):
before a fatal accident landed him with criminal negligent homicide charges.
Truck driver was found to be texting and driving in
the moments just before a fatal accident in South Texas.
This happened in San Benito, Texas, around noon. This Gonzales

(54:42):
guy was driving this Kenworth that you see here behind
a Chevy Aveo driven by seventy year old Lorenzo. He
soon slowed to make a left turn and that's when
Gonzales slammed into his car. The force of the collision

(55:02):
left Lorenzo's vehicle upside down. Gonzala or Lorenzo, was transported
to a nearby hospital, but he later died of his injuries.
He hit him so hard to flip his car over,
and plus he looks like he's hauling sand. That kind
of trailer, you all sand in a rock saying that

(55:24):
kind of thing. An investigation into the incident revealed a
driver of the cannibal Warts was texting and driving at
this time of the crash. Gonzalez was arrested as currently
beheld on a half a million dollars bond for criminally
negligent homicide charges. And he's a resident of Mexico, so

(55:49):
his butt needs to be deported as well. Get his
tail out of here because he's not gonna learn. Nine
billion dollars worth of cocaine is seized following commercial vehicle
traffic stop at I forty in Tennessee. Tennessee authorities recently

(56:10):
seized millions of dollars worth of cocaine from a semi
initially pulled over for a traffic violation. The drug seizure
took place late in the evening at Heywood County, Tennessee.
Agents with the Criminal Interdiction Unit stopped a semi along
I forty for a traffic violation. During the stop, agents

(56:31):
observed abnormalities in the semi and deployed a cade Heine
unit to the scene. The dog alerted for the presence
of draw of substances and A four hour search of
the vehicle eventually resulted in the discovery of two after
market compartments near the refrigeration unit of the trailer. Agencies

(56:53):
forced open the compartments and discovered ninety wrapped kilos of
cocaine substance, weighing approximately two hundred pounds. The drugs are
valued at about two point two five million dollars wholesale,
with a street value estimated at nearly nine million. And

(57:24):
it goes on to say, you know professional work that
they do, you know which we all know. Bloody, bloody
bla trying to get through. If I had to read
all these stories, I wouldn't get through. We'd have a
two hour program instead of just an hour program. And
it's going to be running over a little bit over
an hour, folks. I have about six more articles to

(57:47):
go through, and I'm trying to make this quick. And
in this story, a commercial vehicle driver ignored signs and
drove around barricade right into floodwaters and then went, oh shoot.
Authorities at Kentucky are reminding drivers to pay attention to

(58:08):
signage after a commercial vehicle driver recently entered floodwaters in
a box truck in Crittenden County. This happened about eleven
o'clock at night. First responders were called that a vehicle
had driven into the floodwaters. I would have left them there.
Driver I'd ignored and driven around two barricades, had passed

(58:30):
a water over the road sign and into the water
from Union County side of the road closure pot. Arrival
at the scene, the driver i'd reached dry ground and
was saved. The truck was recovered. It towed out of
the water. Recovery took her till around four in the morning.
Instances like this is why we keep reiterating that is
not safe to ignore signs and entered floodwaters, said the

(58:53):
Crittenden County officials, Because there was a lot of heavy
rain back then as well going I mean, the storms
just went from Texas all the way to the East coast.
Just to watch him was crazy. And A young man
has passed away after getting run over during a fight
at an El Paso truck stop. A young man passed

(59:18):
passed away after being run over during a fight at
an El Paso truck stop on Easter That happened April twentieth,
According to the local Sheriff's Office police were called to
the travel center in the early morning hours of April
twentieth on reports of a fight in progress. When they arrived,
they found that a man had already been transported to

(59:40):
the hospital by other civilians and were left to figure
out what the heck happened. Witnesses told them of officers
that a twenty year old had run over an eighteen
year rold during the fight at the L Paso truck stop.
He was then transported to the hospital by other individuals,
where he was later pronounced pas Away. Alvarado has since

(01:00:03):
been charged with the murder and aggravated assault. He is
currently in jail on six hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond.
They have not yet determined the motive and that is
still under investigation. And I this is our top story.
I sixty five was closed in northwest Indiana due to

(01:00:25):
a semi truck explosion. I sixty five was closed up
both sides of northwest Indiana doing to a semi truck
explosion that created unsafe conditions. I think accident happened Monday afternoon,
the twenty first of April on inter State sixty five
North Round exit two thirty. As of two thirty that afternoon,

(01:00:51):
the roadway is still unsafe. It will remain closed until
further notice. I'm sure it's opened up by now that
the truck driver was not hurt in the mass of fire.
It's un clear what caused a blaze, but the truck's
trailer load of aerosol spray paint contributed to the explosion.
Small explosions are going on as cans continue to catch fire.

(01:01:11):
The roadway has sustained substantial damage in the inferno. Oh yeah,
that roadway will just melt blacktop. Or that hot of
a fire aerosol cans exploding will just melt blacktop. I
sixty five southbound. All lanes will closed for interminent amount

(01:01:33):
of time due to the semi fire. Once it was safe,
traffic will be escorted around the scene, but that won't
be for a while. They wrote. The cleanup is expected
to last to the night due to the surface of
the roadway being significantly damaged. But yeah, it melted. It
melted that blacktop. It's just like putting a torch to it.

(01:01:58):
And for a chain. Let's have a good story, a
happy story. Excuse me, fix of his knees U see
if it's gonna go hate when you almost it's almost

(01:02:18):
almost got it, and then you know shoot. A truck
driver is reunited reunited with his lost dog thanks to
the help of a drone operator. Truck driver was reunited
with his lost dog thanks to help of a drone
operator in Missouri. Earlier in the year, the truck driver

(01:02:41):
and his dog Buddy were making a stop at Strafford, Missouri,
on their way to Joplin, when Buddy ran out to
play in the snow. Buddy soon ran off, and all
the excitement, a truck driver could not get him back.
The driver then had to head to Joplin, leaving his
dog behind. He posted the Lost Found Facebook page and

(01:03:01):
that's when Charlie Barnes knew he had to help him.
But he jumped out of the truck that was playing
in the stow and then wouldn't come back, and he
took off running. Trucker could not stay. He had to
get to Joplin. Nick, our drone operator, got a drone
up in the air and saw lots of footprints and
we knew where he was. Bud. He had camped out

(01:03:21):
behind someone's barn. So the team set out some food
in a trap in hopes of hopes of catching him. Luckily,
it worked very quickly. About six and a half seven
hours later, we got a ding on the trap and
he was in the trap. Barnes then drove Buddy to
Joplin for a reunion with this trucker owner says the
rescue wouldn't have gone so smoothly if not for the

(01:03:44):
drone operator. So that's pretty cool putting a drone to
good use. And then you know lost and found facebook
page if you ever lose your dog, and my the
town that I live in, we have typical city lost

(01:04:05):
and found on Facebook page, a lot of lot of dogs.
There is no in the in Mississippi. There is no
leash law. You don't have to have a dog on
a leash in the city because I believe because of
coon hunting and they use deer dogs, so you're supposed

(01:04:27):
to have them like on sonar radar kind of it's
a sonar where they have the collars and then they
have like a beacon that they admit on the collar,
but they get out of the collar, you know, then
they're running up and down the road that I live on.
I see dogs running all the time. That you know,
their owners just they lose them and they don't care.

(01:04:51):
They always dump them out here too. In Virginia State
leaves are still investigating a semi truck tire blow out
that caused the road closure and the fire. Virginia State
Police still investigating that caused a large fire and road
closure over that Easter weekend. I was on Interstate eighty one.

(01:05:14):
According to the local news, the twenty twenty five Peterbilt
was heading north on eighty one when it blew a tire.
Semi truck then veered into a guard rail where a
jackknifed and caught fire. Wonder what tire of blue? Forty
two year old truck driver I couldnot pronounce his name,
It's like that Long was seriously injured in the crash

(01:05:36):
and was transported to a nearby hospital. His injuries were
not considered to be life threatening. He was wearing a
seatbelt at the time of the blowout. Fire caused by
the semi truck tire blowout shut down eighty one for
almost two hours, and crews worked to extinguish the fire
and clear the wreckage. As of the next day, they

(01:05:57):
were still conducting investigation into the in but yeah, you
could see the smoke rolling and a truck crashes off
a State Route ninety nine in near Lodi, Ohio, separating
the cab from the trailer. So that's the cab laying
on its side in between the two bridges, and the

(01:06:21):
airlines are still connected these black lines. This is a
container and these are the airlines are still connected to
the truck. Lord, Oh, come on, my tablet is just
giving me fits. One second. California. Oh, I'm sorry, not load.

(01:06:46):
I Ohio's Lodi, California. My bad, apologize about that. It's Lodi, California.
They have highway patrol out there. Responded to an unusual
semi truck crash occurred around ten o'clock in the morning.
It according to another picture, it ran off the road.

(01:07:11):
The trailer is in between the two bridges. The landing
gear is sitting on this concrete right here, and he
I don't know how in the world he spun that
thing around like that. And then what you can't see
down here is that the cab is right off of

(01:07:34):
the chassis, but yet two of the drives are up
in the air. There's a steer tire that's you know,
blown off. These two drive tires are right here and
the other ones are sitting on the ground, and the
chassis is back here. It's just nuts. I drove it
off the highway and landed, yeah, and to the sleugh

(01:07:58):
the in between the two bridges is The images captured
of the scene show a cab of the truck separated
from the trailer, lying on its side below the highway.
The truck driver got out of the cab unhurt, and
of course they needed because of fuel and everything spilling,
they needed to call Hasmatt, which is a lot of money,

(01:08:20):
lots and lots and lots of money and FMCSA Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration says no to high schools asking
for commercial learner permits for students seventeen year old. Federal

(01:08:42):
Motor Carrier has denied an age related regulation exemption request
for high school located in Washington State. And anytime that
the agency passes any kind of regulation, it's not law,
it's a regulation agency rules. They have to do it

(01:09:05):
through what's called a federal register, and so this happened
the end of April. They denied an application for exemption
from the commercial learner permit minimum eighteen year age requirement
that was requested by Connell High School, located in Connell, Washington.
They asked authorities for a five year exemption that would

(01:09:26):
allow students in the school's commercial driver's license training program
to obtain a learner permit at the age of seventeen.
They argue that equivalent or greater level of safety would
be obtained by complying with your regulation, doing part to
various safety requirements, training and field exercises. A slight majority

(01:09:49):
of the public comments received on the exemption request opposed
allowing seventeen year olds. It's bad enough for allowing eighteen
year olds to get a permit to drive a commercial
They just aren't mature enough to do it now. Anybody

(01:10:09):
in the military, I completely get the argument. You know,
I'm not trying to digress or anything. I think you
need to be twenty one to drink. You need to
be twenty one to be in a military. You needed
to be twenty one to get a commercial driver's license.
Across the board. I don't believe in this splitting all

(01:10:31):
this bs. If you've got to get a learner permit,
you better have it for three years until you're twenty
one to get a regular driver's license. You're just not
mature enough. I'm a mom, you're and a grandma. You're
just I would say that to my grandson too. You're
just not mature enough to be driving a rig at seventeen,

(01:10:53):
let alone eighteen years old. You know, I had to
learn on the farm. No, but we had fear shields.
We didn't really drive on the highway. I learned how
to drive driving a farm tractor and bail it hay
and my dad was on the wagon so I had
supervision and which way to turn and follow the row

(01:11:15):
of hay. And you know, he walked me through everything,
not just here you go and uh go park your
instructors parking their butts in the back and the bed
and go taking a nap. Not saying they do, but
you never know. And speed and brake failure suspected in

(01:11:38):
Sandstone Mountain crash that killed alive, actually passed away a
semi truck driver and their coal driver. Sandstone Mountain that
in West Virginia. That is that on sixty four. I
think that's on sixty four. That is a good hill.

(01:12:00):
That is real bad pitch and curves and I think
it's a maybe a forty five mile an hour speed
limit through there. Shortly after five am on April twenty third,
the Raleigh County Sheriff's Office was allorded to a crash

(01:12:21):
that occurred on eastbound I sixty four around one hundred
and thirty six mile marker in West Virginia. When police
arrived on the scene, they discovered that a semi had
veered off the interstate, went through a guard rail, plummeted
down a steep embankment, coming to rest at the bottom
of Sandstone Mountain. Sheriff's office saw two documents that were

(01:12:45):
trapped inside the crash truck with no signs of life. Firefighters,
tow trucks, and ambulance crews responded. They extricated the two
people from the cabin of the truck. Truck driver Librado
thirty three of Louisville and a cod driver Perdomo, forty one,

(01:13:07):
were produge passed away at the scene. They were hauling
a load of watermelons when they crashed, and the Sheriff's
office indicates that speed and brake failure are thought to
have contributed to the crash. Going too fast smoke the brakes,
You're not gonna stop once them breaks. The chambers glaze over.

(01:13:30):
Once your brake pads glaze over like that, It's just
like having a ceramic coffee cup or anything else. How
it's shiny like that. That's what they turned asbestist gets
hot and of the brake lining and your toast. And
a truck driver is transported by ambulance to a hospital

(01:13:53):
after a turkey crashes through his windshield of his truck. Yeah,
the bird, not a person. The bird. It was on
Interstate forty nine in Missouri on northbound about the thirty

(01:14:13):
six mile marker that a turkey left a huge hole
in the windshield. He was able to avoid a crash
and pulled over to the side of the road before
contacting authorities. He was hurt in the accident and was
transported by ambulance to a nearby hospital. Was His transport
was described as non emergency. The spring turkey season runs

(01:14:37):
in Missouri through May eleventh, So there again this story
is beware of turkeys this and they fly low, so
they're not because they're so heavy, they're not really high flyers.
So I want to thank each and every one of
you for joining me this evening. We didn't run too

(01:14:59):
much Old went through over thirty articles thirty different news
stories this week, a lot of news that had to
be reported on. I hope you enjoyed it again. Please like, follow, subscribe,
and please leave your comments if you like the show,
don't like to show what you wanted to share your

(01:15:22):
thoughts about each story. I greatly appreciate it and thank
you again for joining me. And until next time.

Speaker 1 (01:16:03):
NUF Dawn up, laugh na na naff nap, Now Nada,
staff NAP, knock up NAP, NAP, Dot duck nap, nada,

(01:16:46):
staff nap, Stuff nap