Dear Editor,
On Monday January 15th at around 3:50pm, I was driving home on HWY 43 east of Hallville where the road bends, when a big tractor-trailer heading the opposite direction lost a load of ice and snow off the roof of the white trailer which flew into my lane. It flew off in huge chunks. I hit my brakes real hard but still didn’t miss the big chucks that were coming down. The front of my car was badly damaged! On the positive, I’m glad I have quick reflexes because only a foot or so further (a second of braking) and the huge chunk that hit the front of my car would have come through my windshield!
It struck me when I got home, had that happened, I could have ended up on the side of the road in the ditch, in the hospital, or worse, killed. I was quite shaken up the rest of the night and the next day.
I did see the name on the side of the trailer and called the company. I’ve since learned that they are well known in this area. At first they were real nice and said they would take care of things. The guy I spoke to Monday night said he’d check in the morning to see which truck was there. They all have GPS.
Tuesday morning the guy emailed and called and said none of their trucks were in the area at that time. “It must have been someone who bought a trailer from them and didn’t remove the logo”.
I should point out, he did ask for pictures of the damage on Monday night. Maybe they were surprised at the extent of the damage? Granted, they did say they checked their GPS logs and there wasn’t a truck in that area, so legitimately it might be a trailer they sold. I did tell them that selling a trailer with their logo on it was not a smart business move. It could tarnish their reputation.
He went silent.
I spent Tuesday filling out a police report, including “drawing the accident” as they asked. I’m being told to expect about a minimum $2,000, likely higher, bill for repair.
I’ve since received a private message from someone on FB who got hit in the windshield with loose snow from the same truck (time and location exactly the same as me). She didn’t see the logo, but she said it scared her and the grandchildren when it hit. She said she was lucky it was just snow, because there wasn’t any damage.
What has me upset, and I dare say even angry about this is that there should be a way to track down whose truck it is. I have since learned that any truck that travels over 160km radius from its business location must have ELD (Electronic Logging Device). Surely someone out there knows.
I came close to being killed! Would there be more of a community rally if I had? Is that what it’s going to take for some action to stop this from happening again to someone else? It’s the law to clean off a tractor trailer like it’s a law to clean off a car.
I hope they find the truck responsible and somehow enforce the requirements to clean off the rigs before someone does get killed. If anyone witnessed this incident, please reach out to the newspaper staff so they can put us in touch.
Lynne Leblanc
