Driving back down the mountain Sunday from Boone I saw a familiar sight – the runaway truck ramp. And today’s snowy drive to work only reiterated the dangers we may encounter on the road.Runaway truck ramps are fairly common on winding, mountain roads, particularly ones with a steep grade. If you’ve never seen one, they are adjacent to the road, climb at an elevation, and are filled with rolling mounds of sand.
Because of the sometimes-dangerous nature of mountain roads, 18-wheelers infrequently have to use these emergency escape ramps to stop their momentum in uncontrollable situations, say if their brakes give out. Supposedly the piles of sand, which grow larger and larger the deeper into the ramp you progress, provide enough of a wall to bring the truck safely to a stop.
Now I realize that these ramps are for worst-case scenarios. No one wants to be present for an 18-wheeler’s impending crash. But I’m not going to lie here. I’ve passed by too many of these ramps and have never once seen one in use. My curiosity has been sparked. I want to see how long it would take a truck to stop.
It sounds all so morbid, I know. It’s not that I want to see someone get hurt. I don’t want to see any broken limbs or crunched metal. I just want to see one of these runaway truck ramps successfully put into action. Maybe I don’t even need to witness the truck on the ramp, but I do at least want to see tire marks in the uneven mounds of shuffled sand.
Tell me I’m not alone in my sinister wonder…
2 comments:
On the drive to Cashiers (past Asheville) things get pretty steep and I have seen trucks in the sand and have seen the sand mounds with tracks through them from prior use. It is scary, but I am sure glad the escape route is there for the trucks. To get sense of realism, how about we push you down a big hill on rollerblades into a local park's sandbox? - Salamanzar
I love your commitment to my happiness.
Post a Comment