That piece of highway should be 4-laned. People think it is safe, but it has an extremely high volume of traffic for a two lane section of highway, transport trucks are slowed down from the mud river hill and the up hill climb building up trains of impatient 4 wheelers behind them, then all sorts of unsafe passing takes place. An upgrade should be part of a ring section to bi-pass Peden Hill and the College Heights hill as well.

This morning I had a fully loaded loging truck slide across four lanes of highway in front of me across from Wal-mart. That was with sand and gravel on the road. He wasn't even going very fast. The accident in Beaverly happened only minutes after I went through there, and the roads were sanded good as far as I could tell.

On my way back into town I had to deal with the detour which was horrendous. Totally unorganized from my perspective. A chip truck was spun out on one of the detour hills blocking the original detour so they directed me onto a goat road with a B-train that is not ment for those kinds of roads. This goat road had a hill on it that I barely made over the top down to 2nd gear with all lockers on and to make matters worse they had a grader come over the top of the hill as I was coming up from the bottom. I saw three logging trucks jack knifed. I'm surprised more people were not hurt.


Coming into town the section of highway across from the Wal-mart has a speed limit of 80 and I approached at half that speed, knowing what happened to the logging truck earlier, and even at half the post speed limit I could not slow the momentum of my weight on the sanded hill and it took everything I had to keep from jack knifing or sliding into other lanes. The merge lane was a disaster waiting to happen.

My biggest gripe of the day was the tourist traffic that should not have been on the road. I don't think people understand what fully loaded transport trucks have to deal with. People that speed up to 80-90 only to slow down to 40-50 on the corners or before hills put in danger everyone on the highway when the conditions are like they were today. You can not slow down a fully loaded transport truck as fast as a car when navigating a corner on black ice. Yo-yo's that drive erratically like that should not be on the road on days like today....

My condolences go out to the families that lost loved ones today.

I agree with you Chadermando. Something should be done with that stretch out west. I was in that area at the time of that accident. All roads around and out of town were extremely slick. I try at times to understand the logic behind why motorists choose to ingore road conditions and warnings, and those who try to make life easier for them like "me". I work for the city of PG and operate a sander/plow truck. With conditions like today I had a number of motorists pass me at an unsafe speed. They can't wait or don't know what we're doing out there. Yes they'll wait about 30 seconds and then pass me. And as they pass they will show me that international sign for being number one. People! remember, I get the last laugh when I pass you, while you've spun out or in the ditch.HAH HAH!! We're out there to make the roads safer for everyone. Let me do my job, slow down and be patient. Its not going to kill you if I add a few minutes more to where your going. When and only when its Safe for us then we'll pull over or turn our spinners off and let all you by. Just like Chadermando said, people don't realize what it takes to bring a heavy unit to a complete stop. I could go on and on about road stupidity but I'll stop here. People! with roads like today, slow down, have some respect for large vehicles and stay alive.

My prayers go out to the victims families of todays accident.

Luis J Gomes
truck #20