Tanker truck catches fire on northbound I-75 ; freeway ‘could be closed for days'

[Pam]

Tanker truck catches fire on northbound I-75 in Troy; freeway ‘could be closed for days’ [[clickondetroit.com)

Accident was near Big Beaver road.

[Meddle]

I thought you were talking about one of the usual places in town.

But then, all you did was post a link and didn't really talk about it at all.

So, since that site has been a problem for me in the past with their ads and autoplay video, I'll just have to guess that might be at the big curve out there.

[Scottathew]

Troy has a volunteer fire department. Three of their stations responded along with a hazmat team from the county. Rob Morosi, M-DOT spokesperson, stated that the pavement may be brittle due to the hot fire and may need to be replaced.

One of my acquaintances was about 20 cars behind it and was stuck for an hour. She had some pretty intense pictures.

[Maof]

Here's a dash cam view from another trucker....
https://www.clickondetroit.com/traff...-i-75-in-troy/

[Danny]

Darn! MDOT crews just finished paving the highway.

[jcole]

That whole interchange was just reconstructed and the road repaved.
And it looks like he had just come out of the curve when he lost control

[Meddle]

It says Troy near Big Beaver road.

Your post does not.

But yeah, that's the curve I was thinking of. Always hated it.

[Meddle]

Troy has a volunteer fire department.

That was fine in the 70s, but it's just stupid now with all the business and industry out there.

[Meddle]

I understand that freeway designs and routing are more political than much of anything else including safety, but I'd have been pushing for something more along the red line way back on the drawing board:

[Pam]

Your post does not.

But yeah, that's the curve I was thinking of. Always hated it.

I edited the first post. Happy now?

[313WX]

Just when they got I-94 reopened after being closed forever due to flooding...

[Hermod]

Summer of 1959, I worked for the City of Troy as an "engineering aide" getting minumum wage. Since I had just completed two semesters of Surveying in college and the acting City Engineer saw I could operate a transit and a level, he stayed in the office and let me run the surveying party. As a newly incorporated city, they wanted to get all of the subdivisions off wells and septic tankds, so we were surveying and staking the lot lines for the water and sewer folks. At the time, I-75 was just getting started from the river. The actual proposed alignment north of Davidson was still being determined. Myself and my two rodmen-tapemen would show up in a subdivision and start staking the property lines through the built and unbuilt lots. Housewives [[most women still stayed home) would come out in droves and scream at us that they didn't want the expressway through their property. I would try and explain that we were from the city and not from the highway deparment. They wouldn't believe a 20 year old kid and would call the city in high dudgeon. I guess that the final alignment through Oakland County was subject to a lot of NIMBY pressure and followed the path of least resisance.

[Meddle]

I guess that the final alignment through Oakland County was subject to a lot of NIMBY pressure and followed the path of least resisance.

Which is exactly what I said, even if it made the road more dangerous, ie the Big Beaver Curves.

[Hermod]

Which is exactly what I said, even if it made the road more dangerous, ie the Big Beaver Curves.

Also. "beautiful downtown Troy" at the time was the old village of Big Beaver and was a cluser of stores on the east side of Rochester Road and north of 16 Mile [[Big Beaver Rd) and an intersection there wouls wipe out the area with a cloverleaf. The westward bend put the Big Beaver intersection to the west of the Rochester Road/Big Beaver intersection.

[Jimaz]

... I guess that the final alignment through Oakland County was subject to a lot of NIMBY pressure and followed the path of least resistance.

I too would guess that's the case here, however,

Is it true that every so often there has to be a curve in a section of Interstate, to help keep drivers from falling asleep?

Yes and no. Design standards don’t require curves to keep drivers from falling asleep, but that is one reason curves may be included....

A curvilinear alignment also reduces the boredom of driving along extremely long tangent sections [engineer speak for “straight roads”], keeping the driver alert.

That's more of an issue in the wide open spaces out west where "highway hypnosis" can cause accidents.

[Meddle]

Curves are fine, but they don't have to be sharp 90s a short distance apart or that mess at 9 mile.

White line fever is a thing and all, but there are places on some Interstates where you can tie the steering wheel off for a hundred miles.

[Gistok]

Even on I-94 at the Wayne/Macomb County line north of Vernier... I'm sure that a lot of NIMBY played into the freeway looping to the west towards 9 Mile. St. Clair Shores didn't want I-94 cutting off the west end of the city from the rest of the city. So that curve puts I-94 at the border between St. Clair Shores and Eastpointe/Roseville from 9 to 12 Mile Roads.

That bend in I-94 is one of the worst sections of that freeway, and it got worse because the Vernier Rd. ramp to EB I-94 is a curve, and much shorter than it should be.

[Dumpling]

The trucker may well have had white line fever [drowsiness,
falling asleep] but part of the problem was that the load
was a liquid with a "mind of its own".

Not that it really could think, but that liquid load wanted
to go "straight" [or somewhere other than what the trucker
intended] while the trucker probably wanted the truck to
curve to the right in that place.

That said, probably the truck was going too fast for conditions.

[Laughed at Hermod's surveying post!]

[EastsideAl]

Here's a dash cam view from another trucker....
https://www.clickondetroit.com/traff...-i-75-in-troy/

It sure looks like that driver fell asleep. So I guess the curve didn't help in that regard. Imagine being in that car that he almost took into the median with him. Good thing that driver was paying attention.

[Ray1936]

Boy, that dash cam was sure in the right place at the right time! TY, Maof.

[EastsideAl]

A big part of the reason for the right angles paths of Detroit area freeways has to do simply with the fact that the property and township boundary lines were originally laid out in squares subdivided into rectangles. So it was easier and less expensive to acquire land for freeways along the existing property lines and road alignments. South of Big Beaver I-75 mostly runs along the old Stephenson Highway alignment, which was originally laid out and acquired as a streetcar/interurban right-of-way, complete with the now much hated 9 Mile curve.

[Maof]

It sure looks like that driver fell asleep. So I guess the curve didn't help in that regard. Imagine being in that car that he almost took into the median with him. Good thing that driver was paying attention.

I'm guessing he did too. No brake lights when he's veering toward the retaining wall. He's lucky to be alive and that goes for other driver too.

[Danny]

I believe that oil tanker who caused the crash the fire in I-75 FWY. must have speeding as he tried to make a sharp right turn northbound. He may be charge for reckless driving and speeding.

[Dumpling]

A good practice is to do all of the braking for the curve on
the straight highway before you go into a curve like that,
then accelerate a little bit on the way out of the curve, once
you are past the tightest radius of the curve.

That's probably not what this driver was doing though. Hitting
the wall that hard after not braking does point to a distracted
or drowsy driver, though it could have been that this was an
[after the fact of driving too fast for this curve] intentional
move due to the car in the left lane that was cut off.

[Burnsie]

I understand that freeway designs and routing are more political than much of anything else including safety, but I'd have been pushing for something more along the red line way back on the drawing board:

Looks good, though you'd need to modify it a bit to avoid going through the middle of White Chapel Cemetery!