8:20 PM: Avoid California/Admiral for a while. Police are on the scene of a collision between a semi-truck and car; thanks to Andy for texting the photo. Radio exchanges indicate no injuries; eastbound Admiral is blocked right now, though.
8:46 PM: SDOT says the intersection is clear.
OK, how did that cute little car get under that truck? Must be someone who never heard the phrase “wide right turn,” but now will never forget it.
Those trailers usually have stickers on the back warning drivers. Unless the truck driver failed to signal, car driver definitely should have hung back.
Accident on Christmas Eve on the other side of the intersection by Jack n the Box.
That was a bad one. 4 police cars were there for a couple hours. A car was turning left out of the Safeway gas station it looked like, driver’s side door took the impact head on. I looked at @seattlepd twitter’s account and there was no mention at the time.
Crashes only hit SPD twitter if they are something huge. You want to check SDOT twitter otherwise:
https://twitter.com/SDOTtraffic/status/1342343629998735360
No serious injuries in what you’re mentioning. Only one engine dispatched
http://www2.seattle.gov/fire/realtime911/getRecsForDatePub.asp?incDate=12%2F24%2F2020&rad1=des
It was there 14 minutes per incident log.
http://www2.seattle.gov/fire/IncidentSearch/incidentDetail.asp?ID=F200125731
If anyone had suffered serious injuries, a medic unit would have been sent too. – TR
Somebody always in a hurry ,must have been a life or death situation for the driver of the car to try and sneak by the truck
It seems like it was the battle of the bulge with two drivers seeing who’s was bigger. Ultimately semi always has the biggest bulge of all.. :c
It’s hard not to wonder if someone thought they were going to “sneak” in front of the semi on the right side while he was turning. I’ve seen too many near misses with people doing that to buses and semis…
Isn’t that a red light above the truck? That indicates to me that while the car had the legal right to turn right at a red light, the truck did not.
The truck and car were both traveling in the same direction, both seeking the same route alignment. Furthermore, California is three lanes wide, with the center being a left-turn lane. What’s important here is that there is no lane for the car to pass on the right, and given the position of the vehicles, it’s a very low probability that truck driver was passing the car on the car’s left. Thus it is likely the car driver was attempting to overtake the truck on the truck’s right.
AA. A red light at the time this picture was taken is MEANINGLESS. The ONLY thing that counts is what was happening at the time of the accident.
Not only is the time at issue, but the lights in the photos are for different directions of travel.
The car was probably not trying to “sneak” past the truck. Looks like the truck tried to turn right from the left-hand northbound lane of California — but that’s *not* a right-turn lane. If a truck can’t safely turn from the correct lane it needs to take a different route and not drive over/into a vehicle which is simply following traffic regulations.
The solid white of the right-hand side of the left turn lane is to the left of the truck’s left tires. The probability that a truck driver, especially one who likely regularly drives the route, made a right-hand turn from the left-turn is basically zero.
Trucks and buses can and do (legally) swing wide for their right-hand turns all the time. Most roads in urban areas (like this one) are not wide enough for a semi to make a right-hand turn from the inside lane. There is no “different route”. They travel in the right lane and swing wide into other lane(s) (which is not the same as turning *from* that lane anyway) to make the turn.
The truck was in the right. Has a wide-turn sticker on the back..98% do…which means they will take two lanes to turn. The car should have held back.
I’ve never heard anyone claim that a sticker on a vehicle, even “a wide-turn sticker” on the back of a vehicle, is something that is legally enforceable, so do you have a source to support your claim? I can, however, point out that passing on the right puts the driver in a situation where he is likely to be at fault no matter if there is a sticker or not. “The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass another vehicle upon the right only under conditions permitting such movement in safety (RCW 46.61.115).”
I have witnessed many a semi overtake that intersection, get stuck and bully other cars that were already there first. I wouldn’t jump to conclusions that the smaller car is in the wrong. Sometimes those trucks suddenly turn right from the left lane with no warning.
I used to handle claims for UNFI. (United Natural Foods, Inc). Was able to get the claim routed to the TPA (Third Party Administrator) claims office in Bloomington, MN and the claim has been assigned to a file handler this morning., I suspect they had made a delivery at either Safeway or the CO-OP. ; Most the time the trucks have activated cameras on dash in case your wondering.
It’s pretty common knowledge that long vehicles; tractor-trailer rigs, buses, and private vehicles towing a trailer need to “take’ the next lane to their left to (hopefully) safely and successfully complete their right turn in one forward maneuver. I’m sure the drivers of such would love it if the laws of physics dictated that they didn’t need to do so, and could make a curb lane-to-curb lane turn while staying completely within the confines of each of those lanes. I don’t know who is at fault here, I guess that will be determined in insurance and police investigations. All I’m trying to do is point out a simple, indisputable, fact… —Mike
MIWS agree with you. Obviously a lot of these commenters have no idea how much room a “Semi” needs to make a right-hand turn … of course the truck driver could had said “there’s no way I can make this turn so I just won’t make this grocery delivery”
My comment doesn’t deny that fact, but I have personally witnessed a semi come to this particular intersection that already has cars in all lanes and force them to back up. I have seen semis run over the corners because they’re going so wide and I have seen them just get stuck because they try to turn too tight, too fast. A lot of comments are assuming the car came up from behind the semi. I’m saying, don’t assume.
Sorry, comment time is over.
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