18 wheeler wrecks leave highways at a standstill for hours
by Adam King
Tuesday, August 20th 2019
Two major 18 wheeler wrecks in San Antonio in one day close major highways for hours resulting in even more necessary road repairs.
Right now, there's more than 2 million big rigs across the country, and this year they will get into nearly 500 thousand wrecks, and Hernan Rozemberg with TxDOT told us what is being done to keep your roads clear of chaos.
"We do set the speed limits and stuff like that but actually enforcement comes down to law enforcement," Rozemberg said.
TxDOT talking road safety after multiple big rig wrecks within hours of each other, closing highways completely for extended amounts of time.
"On I-10 there was damage, the truck slid across the highway and caused some damage to the highway plus there was a fuel spill," Rozemberg said.
But Rozemberg said it's not up to them which lanes are closed.
"Tx DOT is not technically a first responder agency so usually fire or police get the 9-1-1 call when people see stuff going on the highway,” said Rozemberg. “They put on a closure as they need it, if they close one lane they close one lane if they need to do a full highway closure that's up to them."
Maintenance crews only step in when called upon.
Depending on the need to cleanup or help with the situation with the closure they'll call us for that," Rozemberg said.
And when it comes to these big rig rollovers, Rozemberg told us out of town truck drivers fall for the same trap.
"The number one cause of crashes out there is speeding,” said Rozemberg. “It usually is especially on the I-10 corridor that a lot of people call us about. "
We did check with city and county officials to see if there are any plans in place to speed up the cleanup process, but have not heard back for comment at this time.