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<DIV><FONT face=Verdana>I've been on that road at place. It's hard to
believe that oversized loads except for farm machinery going from field to field
are allowed there.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Verdana>w.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=gussie443@hotmail.com
href="mailto:gussie443@hotmail.com">Ellen Roskovich</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, September 02, 2011 12:49 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">vision2020@moscow.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] Megaload incident in Montana</DIV></DIV></DIV>
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<DIV id=mpf0_MsgContainer
class="SandboxScopeClass ExternalClass PlainTextMessageBody ContentFiltered"><PRE>... this is an eye opening article about the danger of oversized<BR>loads, and the denial games the companies involved in the shipments<BR>can play.<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>---------- Forwarded message ----------<BR> <BR> <BR><A onclick=onClickUnsafeLink(event); href="http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_a11cb2e2-d44b-11e0-b6d4-001cc4c002e0.html" target=_blank><FONT color=#0068cf>http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_a11cb2e2-d44b-11e0-b6d4-001cc4c002e0.html</FONT></A><BR> <BR>Motor home has close call with oversize load on Highway 200<BR> <BR> <BR> <BR>Eldon Dreyer knew what was coming. He just didn't think it was coming so fast.<BR> <BR>Dreyer was driving his motor home west last week down a rolling<BR>stretch of Highway 200 east of Ovando, with his wife Shari and their<BR>three dogs as passengers.<BR> <BR>From the other direction a pilot truck came, amber lights flashing and<BR>a hand waving a red flag out the driver's window. He thought he got<BR>the message.<BR> <BR>"OK, I know there's a big load coming," Dreyer, 75, said a day later.<BR> <BR>He figures the next truck, flashing and warning the same way, was<BR>about 500 yards behind.<BR> <BR>"These guys were driving 50 or 60 miles an hour, going like a bat out<BR>of hell," Dreyer said.<BR> <BR>He slowed to 40 mph just before the highway entered the east approach<BR>to Sperry Grade, where it climbs a small finger ridge and bends back<BR>down to the Blackfoot River bottom.<BR> <BR>"By that time I'm into the curve, guardrails on both sides of me.<BR>Nobody told me to stop. And here that sucker comes," he said.<BR> <BR>Ryash Transport Inc. of Leduc, Alberta, was transporting one of<BR>several loads of steel formations from Washington to Alberta for Krupp<BR>Canada of Calgary. A Ryash semitractor was towing a 115,000-pound,<BR>14-foot-high load, with what Dreyer described as "a big metal piece<BR>that jutted out."<BR> <BR>The jut spread above the highway 23 feet, 8 inches, according to the<BR>trip permit provided by the Montana Department of Transportation.<BR>Dreyer later paced it off and estimated the highway at that point at<BR>32 feet wide, guardrail to guardrail. His motor home, counting large<BR>sideview mirrors, is about 9 feet wide.<BR> <BR>"I got over as far as I could, and of course I didn't want to tear my<BR>motor home up on the guardrail either," said Dreyer, who's from<BR>Riverside, Calif. "And he caught us."<BR> <BR>The Ryash load clipped the driver's side mirror off. The large mirror<BR>smashed into the side window, breaking an outer pane of glass but not<BR>the inner. Shards cracked the windshield of a trailing Chevrolet<BR>Suburban and left what its driver, J.C. Ellender of Choteau, described<BR>as "a big pineapple."<BR> <BR>Remarkably, no one was hurt.<BR> <BR>"We were blessed," Dreyer said. "Twelve inches more and he would have<BR>totally wiped out my motor home. He probably would have wiped out me."<BR> <BR>The motor home and Suburban quickly found a wide spot to pull over and breathe.<BR> <BR>Dreyer said he considered unhitching the car he'd been towing and<BR>giving chase to the big rig. "But I decided, what would that prove?<BR>And at about that time I looked up the road and here came flashing<BR>lights."<BR> <BR>***<BR> <BR>A woman driving the trailing escort truck for Ryash had witnessed the<BR>incident. She came back to take stock, and was later joined by the<BR>unidentified driver of the big rig and another pilot vehicle driver<BR>who'd apparently stopped at the closest pulloff point.<BR> <BR>They gave the Dreyers and Ellender contact information for Ryash<BR>Transport and waited for the Montana Highway Patrol to show up.<BR> <BR>Ellender had a doctor's appointment in Missoula and didn't stick<BR>around. He said his windshield had been cracked anyway, so he planned<BR>on replacing it on his own dime.<BR> <BR>Dreyer said a Montana Highway Patrol trooper eventually did show up to<BR>investigate. The upshot, he said, was that the big rig driver didn't<BR>receive a ticket.<BR> <BR>Ryash's permit with the transportation department restricted its speed<BR>to 55 mph, and didn't call for traffic stoppages.<BR> <BR>"The problem is, by the time you see it, you don't have enough time to<BR>react at 55," Dreyer said. "At 35 you have time to put on your brakes,<BR>pull way over, do something"<BR> <BR>Ellender called Ryash Transport in Canada and spoke with owner Michael<BR>Hutchings.<BR> <BR>"His reaction was that the motor home was entirely in the wrong, that<BR>(Dreyer) had blown through three escort vehicles and that was what put<BR>him in harm's way," said Ellender. "But the escort vehicles, in my<BR>estimation, were doing a little less than exemplary job, just being in<BR>front of him with blinking lights and traveling probably 60 or 70<BR>miles an hour."<BR> <BR>Contacted on Wednesday at his headquarters in Leduc, near Edmonton,<BR>Hutchings said he didn't have the police report, but didn't think his<BR>driver was to blame.<BR> <BR>"As far as we know, it's no fault of ours," he said.<BR> <BR>According to the MDT permit, the load entered Montana from Idaho on<BR>Interstate 90 at Lookout Pass. It left the interstate at St. Regis,<BR>presumably to avoid construction projects in Mineral County, and<BR>traveled on Highways 35 and 200 to Ravalli, Highway 93 back to I-90<BR>west of Missoula, and jumped back on 200 at Bonner.<BR> <BR>Asked why his company didn't haul the loads on I-90 and then I-15 at<BR>Butte, as many of Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil's more famous megaloads of<BR>oil sands processing equipment are now doing, Hutchings replied,<BR>"You'll have to talk to (the Department of Transportation). They<BR>decide the final routing, we don't. It's got to do with their<BR>construction zones."<BR> <BR>***<BR> <BR>Duane Williams, who heads MDT's Motor Carrier Services, said the<BR>transport companies pick the route they want to go on when they submit<BR>an application for a 32-J (oversized load) permit.<BR> <BR>"If there's construction, or if we know of any obstacles, we work with<BR>them on that," he said.<BR> <BR>Williams said the permit restricted the speed of the Ryash load to 55<BR>mph, and didn't call for night-time travel or stoppages of oncoming<BR>traffic.<BR> <BR>Hutchings guessed that the load the Dreyers encountered was one of<BR>half a dozen that Ryash has already transported through Montana on the<BR>project.<BR> <BR>"I don't know what we've got left down there. Three or four, maybe," he said.<BR> <BR>Lori Ryan of the Montana Department of Transportation said three Ryash<BR>loads were due to leave the chain-up area near Mullan, Idaho, at 6<BR>p.m. MDT on Wednesday. Construction at the top of Lookout Pass on the<BR>Montana side requires a pilot-car escort of oversized vehicles<BR>starting at 6:30 a.m.<BR> <BR>Permits are good for five days once they're issued. If there were no<BR>complications, Ryash could have reached Alberta by Wednesday night.<BR> <BR>The Dreyers were traveling to visit relatives in Missoula from Minot,<BR>N.D., where they volunteered to help clean up after devastating floods<BR>earlier in the summer. They plan to stay for another week or so in<BR>Missoula, but Eldon Dreyer said he's encountered a problem.<BR> <BR>It's going to take four weeks to receive a new sideview mirror for his<BR>motor home from the factory. He said Wednesday he was trying to figure<BR>out how to jury-rig a mirror on so he and Shari can drive home to<BR>California.<BR> <BR>"I sure think it would be a good idea to let people know this is going<BR>on," Dreyer said. "If you see somebody leaning out a window waving a<BR>flag, be very careful. You'd better get off the road and stop, by all<BR>means."<BR> <BR>Copyright 2011 missoulian.com. All rights reserved.<BR> <BR>Posted in Local on Thursday, September 1, 2011 6:15 am Updated: 7:54<BR>am. | Tags: Oversized Loads, Montana Department Of Transportation,<BR>Highway 200, Ovando, Sperry Grade, Ryash Transport Inc., Motor Home,<BR>Megaloads<BR> <BR>Read more: <A onclick=onClickUnsafeLink(event); href="http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_a11cb2e2-d44b-11e0-b6d4-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1WlL1XTsF" target=_blank><FONT color=#0068cf>http://missoulian.com/news/local/article_a11cb2e2-d44b-11e0-b6d4-001cc4c002e0.html#ixzz1WlL1XTsF</FONT></A><BR></PRE></DIV>
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