The Canadian Lumber Jerk
This early morning wreck occured on the lower deck of I-93 southbound in Boston, on that 100 yard stretch known locally as the "high bridge". This section is directly above the Charles River and the Gridley Locks.
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What makes this accident even more interesting, is the fact that it was almost a perfect repeat performance of another accident 3 years ago, involving another Canadian lumber trucker. The impact of that accident went down in the history books as the worst non-weather related traffic jam since 1973, when a truck hit the Tobin bridge.
On May 2nd of 1995, Serge Brosseau was hauling a load of 2x4's (while intoxicated) when he swerved and tipped his trailer into one of the bridge support beams and bending it. In addition to dumping his load onto the road and into the river, it forced a complete closure of I-93 in both directions until bridge repairs were completed, 2 days later! The cost of that whole fiasco was about $1M with the police overtime, not including
commercial loss to businesses.
The trucker in this newest accident hit the EXACT SAME BEAM! Thankfully, this time there wasn't any structural damage to the bridge, and the cleanup was almost completed by the start of morning rush-hour. But it sure brought back some scary memories ;-)
More:
http://towzone.com/lumberjerk/lumberjerk.htmlAlso, don't forget the day the lobster truck over-turned on the Tobin!
Or the day they first tested the Zipper Truck, and there was total gridlock from Saugus to Braintree due to rubbernecking!