Given the number of motorists who have died descending the steep Route 135 stretch at Backbone Mountain, there is little doubt that a state-constructed truck escape ramp saved the life of a Virginia trucker Monday afternoon.
Thirty-two-year-old Bonzell Garland had just left Mountain Lake Park in his 1997 Kenworth tractor pulling a 2006 Cherokee trailer loaded with a conveyor belt when the rig’s brakes and transmission failed. Garland saw flashing warning lights on the advance sign and immediately headed for the ramp, according to Dave Buck, a State Highway Administration spokesman.
Garland told police his transmission and brakes failed as he was traveling 45 to 50 mph when he ditched the rig into the escape ramp.
Tfc. Blair Bittinger of the state police investigated the incident and estimated Garland was traveling “close to 65 miles per hour” when he hit the runaway ramp where a 3-foot deep mixture of sand and pea gravel finally brought the tractor-trailer to a halt — more than 550 feet into the 1,800-foot runaway ramp. “That’s the farthest I’ve seen any vehicle go into the escape ramp,” said Bittinger, who has investigated several uses of the ramp by various vehicles in the last eight years.
Garland was taking his 78,000-pound rig from Garrett County to Norfolk, Va., when the mishap occurred.
Backbone Mountain has been the scene of numerous fatal accidents over the last three decades involving rigs that failed to stop before slamming into the rocky embankment at the base of the mountain. Twenty or more crosses commemorating drivers who have died there are painted on the rocky hillside where Route 135 flattens out and abruptly makes a 90-degree turn past the NewPage paper mill. Hence, the vital need for the truck escape ramp.
“Without the runaway ramp there, it’s very possible someone’s life could have been lost Monday,” said Bittinger, who has worked out of the Finzel weigh and inspection station for the past eight years in his duty with the Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division.
We have no doubt that the ramp did, indeed, save a life Monday.
