ST. LOUIS MISSOURI: TRACTOR -TRAILER EXPLODES ON I-70

St. Louis Post-Disgrace ^

[Chad Fairbanks]

No offense intended. It just caught me off guard. Hope you feel better soon :0)

[sweetliberty]

"Anybody remember that FedEx truck that blew up on the north side of St. Louis(I-270)?"

Yeah. I also remember they hushed it up in a really big hurry. Registered did one of his great graphics for it.

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[sweetliberty]

There was no car involved in the incident with the Fed-Ex truck.

[af_vet_1981]

Could be because nearly every disaster thread features a race to be first. This time, I won.

Stupid me, here I thought all this time that islam was a religion not a race.

ROFL

That was a clever pun.

[Peace will be here soon]

I recall them saying it was a car that rammed into the truck resulting in it veering off the road. Then the truck struck a highway sign and caught fire. The suspect car never stopped. At least I remember witnesses testifying to this. But heck, I could be wrong. It has been awhile since it happened.

[stlnative]

If I remember correctly he was cut off by another car and it kept going.

One day while up in St. Louis going up to see family, we were on the same stretch of 270 where the FedEx truck was. We were in the middle lane and had a 350 size pickup on the right of us, he was pulling a large recreational trailer behind him... he was slightly ahead of us... all of sudden he started to swerve in our lane and at the same time all this yellow liquid crap came flying all over over our trucks windshield and hood and feathers were flying every where. There was so much of the yellow liquid crap that my husband turned on the wipers real quick so he could see. We were lucky we did not have an accident and so was the other guy, we just kept moving. What happened was a large pregnant canadian goose (female) flew right "into" the guys truck at the top of his windshield, it scared him and he swerved. The impact caused the eggs from the goose to come flying out of her and all over our truck. We never did see the goose we just ended up with all her eggs in our faces (well windshield). When we got to house to visit we had to quickly wash off all the egg goo that was all over our truck. It was gross and amazing at the same time... my husband said she was loaded with eggs and that might be why she was flying so low.

The point is there are small ponds in the area close to the highway and there are always canadian geese flying low across the highway there. So just about anything could have caused the FedEx accident, also the highway climbs up in the area where the FedEx truck was and sometimes the traffic on the otherside is moving slow (the traffic tends to stop and go there because of the ramp from I-170 letting off in the fast lane), the traffic has been bad there for sometime as they have a section of another highway closed off there (where I-170 ramps off onto I-270 going west) and they have had it closed down for sometime for reconstruction, at least for the last year and traffic is heavier on that part of 270 due to the reconstruction of the ramp from I-170 on to I-270. (I-170 to east bound I-270 is still open, but the west bound one is closed - both let off in the fast lane going in each direction and that is what they are trying to correct)

Whoever designed the highway structure in St. Louis and St. Louis County was a total screw up, there are many bad spots in several place in St. Louis and Missouri is trying to correct these problems. Both these accidents happened in 2 of the top worse highway constructed spots in St. Louis. The problems they had at both these spots is they had incoming traffic ramps let off quickly into the fast lane in both areas. The I-70 express lane was just finished over the summer. But the I-170 & I-270 intersections is still screwed up and under reconstruction currently. It is a major overhaul & task.

I truly believe that the FedEx accident & this one are just "accidents" due to poor highway construction and some fool leaving the tail end of their stalled car sticking out.

[Plutarch]

Must have been a movie crew nearby. In a movie if you ever see a tanker truck, it will blow up.

[stlnative]

In this picture see the areas with the arrows top painted on the pavement. This is where the express lanes that go down the middle of the highway begin. It sounds like the car was sitting right between the lanes that veer to the express and the regular lanes. It could be the driver was confused and was trying to look over in his mirror while he going onto or off the express, he may have not seen the car sitting on the blank area (shoulder) that allows cars to merge with the regular traffic. If you know the area you will know what type of "blank area" I am talking about. It is kinda like a shoulder, but is actually where the lanes spilt for the express lanes that are in the center of the east and west bound lanes. The arrows are painted on this "blank area" (shoulder) that merges with the other regular lanes. See the wall (or rail) between both lanes? the one lane on each side,? then a "no drive" lane with the arrows (the merge space between to 2 lanes - I bet the car was sitting in the arrow zone) then the 3 lanes on the outside of the arrows? This picture tells me it happened right at the express (inlet or outlet depending on which direction they had the express opened up).

It is a shame no one had the car towed off, but most of the time they are towed within 24 hours if a cop see's it sitting there. The weather got real cool in St. Louis Sunday night from 60 during the day and down to upper 20's by morning. So it is possible tow trucks were busy towing and jumping batteries on cars that were not prepared for winter yet. Still it is sad and is no excuse. I bet they go after the owner of the stalled car. I hope the owner did call a tow truck for their sake and that the tow service was just too busy, in otherwords a freak accident with many factors involved.

[cgk]

That's the first thing I thought of. I never heard any follow up. I remember the pictures here on FR though. Similar, IIRC...

[El Gato]

I'd wait for confirmation of Tito's story. Eye witnesses (*Ear* Witnesses in this case?) tend to make stuff up to please the reporters fawning over them.

Well if I was a reporter, or a cop, I'd *go looking* for confirmation. Multiple explosions had to have been heard by many people, if multiple exlosions there were. Shouldn't be hard to confirm. The story seemed to indicate that the reports of multiple explosions came from more than just the one source.

I wasn't necessarily thinking of terrorists. Lots of other stuff of interest to law enforcement is also quite combustible, maybe the truck was a rolling meth lab? Who knows? I was just pointing out that there is something missing from the story.

[Peace will be here soon]

Yes, very well could be the way you described. Seems to me that if the car was in the in-between lane there, they would have towed it off. They said the car was there at 5 AM and this accident occured at around 7:30 PM., which means the car would have been there for 14 plus hours. I don`t think they would leave it there that long if people were swerving to miss it all day, but who the heck knows, that area is not exactly ticking like a well timed clock. I guess I will read about it in the paper tomorrow. I never have liked driving that area, drove it for three years when I worked in the city ( before the recent improvements). All that work they have done has improved it somewhat, but it is still a mess.

[Peace will be here soon]

The explosions could possibly have been the truck/trailer tires blowing in the fire. Those things are like little bombs when they go off.

[cgk]

Maybe the car was the "bomb".

[bluefish]

I know.. Not implying anything on your part. I just like commenting on how untrustworthy news is as often as I can. I hate the media, so I like to call out my general lack of faith in what I read. I completely agree with your personal take.

[Peace will be here soon]

The witness in the article describes several explosions, which leads me to believe that it was the tires popping off in the fire. If you have ever been around a truck/trailer repair shop ( I ran one for a few years) you would understand how these things going off could be confused with a large explosion(s). When you air these tires up , after a repair or replacement, they have to be put in metal-barred cages or concrete cages ( if you are insane, you can just air them up in the open, I would NOT recommend that). If you ever witnessed one going off, it would scare the bejeezers out of you. They kill people all the time who do not use safety cages. I think I remember one of our soldiers in Iraq that was killed this way.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Maybe the car was the "bomb".

Which would have turned the truck into one big Ramabomb toy.

[IrishRainy]

You must be very proud of him! And you seem to have a good attitude as well. No sense worrying, for his destiny is in God's hands. Anyway, will say a little prayer that his guardian angel keeps him safe!

[Rebelbase]

"Don't be silly, it's Bush/Cheney and their oil buddies trying to get gas prices up. "

Or possibly the disaster clean up company is a Haliburton subsidiary.

[defendingright]

I blame President Bush for this.
He could have prevented this.
But he doesn't care.

WHAT DID HE KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?!

[applemac_g4]

St. Louis has one car stolen about every 45 minutes.

So that's why my car insurance premium went down $600 a year when I left Saint Louis...