W900 and the Colorado Wreck

So going back to late 2007 when I was back at Navajo for my second round of employment, I was at the yard one day when I noticed one of the only ten Kenworth W900s they had was sitting there. So I asked about it, and they said that the driver was going to be off for awhile due to some medical issues. So I asked if I could have the truck, and they said if I was willing to clean out his stuff and put it in the shed, it was all mine! So I was more than happy to do so! Just like before with my first Peterbilt, I was in heaven man! I loved this truck, quickly had it polished up and looking sharp as heck!

I had driven it for several months, I was just in chicken hauler heaven man! I was just out stylin & profilin c'mon! So anyway fast forward to spring of 2008 to Virginia and I had just picked up a load of some kind of organic milk I think it was, and this is where the story begins, the beginning of the end of my W900.

This load was a two stop load for Colorado, one in Aurora and one in Grand Junction. So I picked it up and trucked it across country all the way to Colorado. Now the first stop was a regular customer that we had that I knew very well, and I knew they had two warehouses, one on each side of Airport Blvd. So I went to the refrigerated warehouse first on the east side of the road, and they told me it went to the warehouse on the west side of the road. So I took it over there, they pulled it off,set it on the dock, signed the bills and I was on my way to Grand Junction. Now this may sound pretty basic, but this is where things on this load went really wrong, but we'll get back to that later.

So I continued on up to Grand Junction and made my delivery up there the next morning, and then headed back to Denver empty. BEAUTIFUL day in the rockies, sun was shining, just a little bit chilly, being an early spring day. I was in no hurry so I stopped along the way to take some pictures.

So I came up to the Eisenhower/Johnson Tunnel and on the west side of the mountain it was sunny, east side was full blown winter storm. So by the time we reach the exit of the tunnel I'm doing about 15 mph. Now I'm going to recount the circumstances that happened in the next few moments EXACTLY as it happened, swear on a stack of bibles. This is important because later on you're not going to believe how it all plays out.

 So as I exited the tunnel at approximately 15 mph everything in front of me turns to total chaos. I see cars swerving all to the right hand shoulder, the road is solid ice, and I look up and see a six wheeled box truck spun sideways in the left lane. I had no where to go, so I hit the brakes to try and stop and my trailer immediately slides sideways. I can see at this point I have no where to go and there is no way I'm going to be able to stop. So I aimed my truck for the back of the box truck, not knowing if anyone was in the cab, I didn't want nobody to get hurt. I tightened my grip on the wheel and braced for the impact, it was like it was all happening in slow motion, BANG!!! I slammed into the box, scooted him down the highway farther, and my truck turned left into a jackknife and I slid off into the concrete median. Then I looked out my driver side window and saw a pickup pulling a trailer coming right at me, he slammed into my drive tires, another pickup went into the median, and all the way back into the tunnel vehicles were colliding, some 13 cars and trucks all total.

So the state patrol showed up and eventually I was able to back my truck up and pull over to the shoulder. There were no serious injuries but I was transported to Denver in an ambulance just to get checked out. The state patrol wrote up the accident as a no fault, act of God, and even a witness at the scene called my safety department and told them there was nothing I could've done to prevent what happened. So my truck was  towed away and the next day I went back up to pick it up and bring it back to the yard.

So back at the yard the next day I get a call from the office wanting to know where the paperwork was for the Aurora stop, I told them I already sealed it and dropped it in the trippak box at the yard. So we had to open it up and find it, because here's where we get back to the story from before, Like I said I had been to this customer and I was familiar with only 2 warehouses that they had, so I paid no attention to the actual delivery address, turns out I had delivered it to a dry warehouse, and the person at the warehouse unloaded it for some reason, and left it sit on the dock and it all spoiled. We tried to argue the point that they signed for it regardless, but in the end the two companies accepted 50% of the blame, and the cost of the mistake, so this meant I was liable for a damage claim, in which the driver gets charged $1000.00.

Now back to the accident. Everyone in the office knew my story, and the story of the witness who called in, and it was pretty well felt that there wasn't much I could've done, everyone except the safety director that is. Despite the witness accounts, and the report from the state patrol which said that there was nobody at fault, he claimed I was "driving too fast for conditions" and this resulted in me being charged with a preventable accident,another $1000 charge to the driver, so I got nailed with a double whammy on this load, one that took me a very long time to pay back at $100 a week I think it was. By the way the driver of the box truck was not in the cab, he actually got out and walked away from the truck, so I guess that was a good thing. He however tried to later claim I hit him and made him spin out, but this didn't hold up because there were plenty of witnesses who saw what happened.
I felt like I could accept responsibility for my part int he spoiled food claim, due to my lack of attention to the delivery address, and delivering to a dry dock and not paying attention, turns out they had three warehouses by the way, the one I didn't know about was the correct one. But I think on the accident I really got screwed, a lot of people were on my side and very upset about it also.


Even though they offered me my W900 back after it was fixed, I went ahead and accepted a brand new T660 instead. Useless fact, but I was the first person at Navajo to move in and drive out of the terminal in a T660, aside from the one test unit they had been running for awhile.