but let me back up a little to tell the story properly. a couple months ago (it must be, now) there was another traffic accident out in front of the shop. wish i had a dollar for every time i hear squealing brakes out there, and i've seen 3 accidents in the last 10 months, and know of a couple more. in the last one though, a nice old Greek guy in a Mercedes SUV got hit in the intersection, then plowed right over an embankment (a good 3 or 4 foot drop) and, still steering, and trying to stop his rig, managed to wedge that Mercedes right in between Scott's super-cool old flatbed i mentioned before, and his Ford pickup (which does most of our delivery duty). it was relatively minor damage to both trucks. one of the headlights on the big truck got broken, and a fender dented, and the front bumper of the Ford pickup got bent a bit, but all in all it could've been much worse.
well, today it was. one of the things you have to know about Scott is that the guy's got a heart of gold; it didn't surprise me in the least when i gathered, this morning, that a company we do some business with asked to borrow that big ol' flatbed, and Scott fixed up the broken headlight and gassed it up for 'em. the other company's normal driver was out for the day on some personal business or other, and they had a temporary driver to drive Scott's rig. seems that driver took a corner too quickly and rolled it over. now, this is a big truck we're talking about- it's rated for 24,000 lbs GVW- and i'm thankful to report that the only injury (as far as i've heard) in the accident was a broken arm, suffered by a passenger in Scott's truck, which is both lucky and unlucky as those things go. i prefer to think of the glass as half full. the truck was loaded up over 16,000 lbs, and it could easily have been a much worse story. someone took a picture of it, and i thought it might be interesting to look at, so here it is. by way of comparison, to gauge the size/weight of all the stuff involved, notice the yellow box flipped over on the ground. that's the fruit of my labor, a steel box that held steel parts weighing approx.700-1,000 pounds. extrapolate that to include the remainder of the load, and the truck itself, and compare with the car (which looks to me, from the picture, likely to have been involved in the accident somehow).
be careful out there, folks. and take it easy on the corners.
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