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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><div class="SoftShadows"><div class="ss_r"></div><div class="ss_b"></div><div class="ss_bl"></div><div class="ss_br"></div><div class="ss_tr"></div></div><input id="atirp" value="" type="hidden"><iframe id="downloadFrame" class="AttachmentDownloadIframe" frameSpacing="0" marginHeight="0" frameBorder="0" marginWidth="0" scrolling="no"></iframe><div style="display: none;"></div> </div></body>
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