Hannibal

My daughter called this morning from Defuniak Springs Florida to tell me their Ace Hardware 18-wheeler driver was killed Thursday when a Dodge Ram towing a Bobcat on a trailer lost control, went over an overpass and took the cab out on the Ace Hardware truck, killing the driver. She works for Ace Hardware and knew the man and his family. His daughter was getting married next weekend I believe she said. Just wondering if anyone knew of this accident or if the Ram owner was one of ours. She said it was a Cummins powered Ram like the one I had before. Can't be too careful out there... I might not have the details correct as her cell phone reception isn't too good in Defuniak. Their repeater station is probably a coat hanger bent just right on top of an old F-150 with the wheels missing.

edwinsmith

I used to live in Tampa and I never heard of Defuniak Springs Florida. I had to look it up on the map. It's no wonder her cell phone didn't work well. That's up in the panhandle and there's a lot of Alabama influence. Big skeeters too!

Hannibal

You ain't a kiddin'! They're way out in the country. DeFuniak Springs is a tiny little nothing of a town and they're 20 miles from there. And them skeeters will pick you up and fly away with you! But they have a fantastic campground called King's Lake if you're ever in that area needing a place to drop your jacks.
I live in St. Pete now but grew half way up in Tampa. We were one block south of Gandy close to McDill. Yeah I know... the "hood". Then we moved to Sarasota when I was ten. Talk about culture shock. We went from the "hood" to a Brady Bunch kind of neighborhood. I never adapted so I moved back up here after I graduated. Tampa and St. Pete are really growing...

edwinsmith

I lived in Tampa up on the north side on 22nd st. about a block from Bearss. They called it suitcase city because of all the apartment buildings. It's a good place to be if you're a crack head. I finally got tired of it and moved back to Kansas. I worked at Republic Bank in St. Pete. Lots of driving.

Edwin

TTHA33

Anyplace that the skeeters will pick you up and fly off with you, definitely does not sound like a fantastic campground

Hannibal

You wouldn't recognize the place now. Bearss Ave is four lane all the way to Erlich Rd at Dale Mabry. Real estate is skyrocketing. Million dollar homes are being built just north of Bearss off of Florida Avenue which is also four lanes all the way to Lutz. But the area around Nebraska is still... crackville. How do you get away from it? Even in the country meth is a problem.
I probably serviced your elevators in Republic Bank while you were there working.

Hannibal

A campground without skeeters? Where? We use alot of deet during skeeter season...

edwinsmith

I was in Network Support during the upgrade prior to the Y2K crisis. We had to upgrade every PC in every branch to comply with Y2K. Big job but when it ended in April 1999, I left. I did consulting work in Tampa until 9-11 then I cut out. I was worried about anthrax hitting tampa because of the staging area at McDill.

I really got tired of all the trafic in/out of the apartment complex where I was. Now I'm planning to move my trailer to NV and be a gold miner.

Edwin

durasmack

Accident Closes Clyde Wells Bridge


A fatal accident in Walton County shut down the county’s only north-south road connection for most of the day Wednesday.

The mishap occurred on the Clyde Wells Bridge on US 331 over Choctawhatchee Bay.

Killed was the driver of a semi-tractor trailer rig, 52-year-old Randall D. Sterling, III of Defuniak Springs. Troopers say a pick up truck pulling a trailer with a bobcat on it, began to fishtail as it crossed the bridge. The truck then swerved across the center line and crashed into a semi truck.

The cab of the semi then went over the side and crashed onto a portion of the old 331 bridge below. Sterling was pronounced dead at the scene.

Three people in the pickup truck sustained minor injuries. Charges are pending.

***********************************

That is from WJHG, NBC 7.

Hannibal

That sounds like the one. Thanks! Hope it wasn't one of ours... Wish it didn't happen at all but unfortunately...

sherman

These headlines are so typical of overloaded bumper-pull trailers,the innocent are dead and the guilty walk away!

Iron Mike

Who said it was overloaded? A newspaper or news broadcast doesn't give all the details. Who knows, maybe someone cut in front of him and he had to swerve and lost it.

RustyJC

But is it unreasonable to expect that a trailer will stay attached to its tow vehicle even through an evasive maneuver?? I think not.

Rusty

Hannibal

An armored truck driver got killed yesterday here on the interstate when a speed ball in a Mazda Miata passed him and cut in front of him too close. The armored truck driver swerved and turned over. I read far too often of truck drivers trying to avoid cars that are driving recklessly and wind up killing themselves. I'd rather no one get killed or hurt but if some one does, I'd rather it be the person at fault. But it does seem like more often than not, it's the one at fault that walks away.
My daughter said the story was the Bobcat trailer started swaying as they crossed the bridge. Don't know if it was overloaded or improperly loaded but there was no other vehicle involved in the swaying of the trailer. Even an overloaded trailer should track ok if it's loaded properly with tongue weight. Just speculating but if it was too much for the truck, they might have moved the Bobcat too far back on the trailer to lessen the tongue weight. My dad did that with a boat one time. It didn't take long before we were moving the boat back forward on the trailer. It was wagging the truck...

bkrukow

I got to agree that there is a diferance between overloaded and improperly loaded. If it was indede a cummins powered ram then it was at least a 3/4 ton and was not overloaded pulling a bobcat. It was however obviously improperly loaded if it started swaying real bad. It seems to me that there is a group of people on here lately that the second something isent just perfectly withing the guide lines of towing weights they jump and scream blody murder. All the while not even taking time to understand that in cases of crashes where a trailer was involved,overloaded or not, it is most likely more a matter of having an improperly loaded trailer that more likely caused the crash. It would apear that is more likely the cause here than to much wheight. That and excesive speed.