Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.
Oh dear, it looks like an articulated lorry has rolled over near Bismark. I hope no-one was hurt.
The lorry in question is owned by Jim Palmer Trucking, and was blown over by winds in excess of 180kph.
If, for some weird reason, you enjoy seeing traffic accidents from above, you’ll love our previous post 9 (Possible) Traffic Accidents.
Thanks: a67
Updated: With thanks to Gary Powell and others in comments.
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Looks like it’s Jim Palmer Trucking.
Yep, I think Mark is right.
This is a truck from Jim Palmer Trucking, they operate nationwide with offices in TX & AR, and many more I’m sure, but these are the locations I know for sure.
I can see how the driver lost control - those American roads are tough to navigate!
Number1BadBoy…I’m sure your British roundabouts are easy to navigate too…I found it extremely hard to navigate in GB when my GPS told me “Take the third exit on the second roundabout…” XD
We call those tractor trailers in the States.
It must have been that blind hairpin turn he made. Or perhaps he fell asleep looking at the landscape.
We also call them semis or big-rigs, but I like articulated lorry!
This is definitely Jim Palmer. My buddy’s dad drove for them many years. I could tell it was a Palmer truck from the thumbnail.
It’s quite possible it was caused by heavy wind. The Dakotas are incredibly flat and can experience heavy winds. The truck that carried my belongings from Boston to Seattle tipped over in the Dakotas (much of my stuff didn’t make it) due to wind.
Far more likely that some numbnuts driving his BMW and talking on his cell phone cut him off…
I agree with wind - northerly - after the housing taking the driver off guard. No skid, no in the ditch / sleeping drver symptons. BTW not ALL bad drivers are BMW owners….
We call those tractor trailers in the States.
“We call those tractor trailers in the States.”
Well, I’m calling them “articulated lorry”s From now on… much funner to say!
That’s actually a road just outside the city limits, with a 35mph speed limit.
That would make it fairly unlikely to be that affected by wind. Maybe the driver over corrected after drifting into the ditch.
Now an interesting question is whether anyone with access to traffic records can tell us the exact time and date on which the photo was taken.
you can digg it now.
I had also thought it was wind, but the wheels of the cab landing across the center-line of the road doesn’t quite gel with that theory.
Actually I would think a crosswind would cause much more movement and increase the possibility of tipping at a lower 35 MPH speed then at a highway speed… especially since nobody is going to pull over the wind for speeding
Also I wonder if there was a fence close to the road on the northern side? seems like the big tow truck for righting the trailer and eventually taking it out of the way is on the wrong side of the truck..
The rig was probably already swaying from the corner he just took: if you track the road back westwards, it runs out into nothing likely to have been a feeder, therefore he had probably just taken the turn not far back. Fair dos to the guy, then, to have kept it going against a fairish risk of jack-knifing that far.
Reminds me of the time someone went over exiting Marble Arch in London - for our cousins on the far side of the ditch, that’s a bit like doing it on Canal and Bowery…
We also call them “18-wheelers,” “semi trucks,” “rigs,” etc. Check out the song “Mama Hated Diesels” by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
What’s weird is that if you scroll south and go to hybrid view, the road map starts to bear very little relation to the satellite photo:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
See at the top left where Cheshire and Hampshire Drives just do not exist? OK, that could be an old image, but what about the other roads which seem to fall in between the existing roads on the ground? Maybe a dirt-road neighbourhood that has since been swallowed up by suburbia?
I drive for Jim Palmer Trucking. We are based in Missoula, Mt. Yes that (sadly) is one of our trucks. It was blown over by winds in excess of 180kph. The driver was not hurt.
this must be a drunk driver who was driving tha truck
This is definitely Jim Palmer. My buddy’s dad drove for them many years. I could tell it was a Palmer truck from the thumbnail.
it must be the road…… that road is very narrow and could be the wind too….. but i dought it.
If the trailer was empty and the winds were high…well that is a 13 foot 6 inch billboard driving down the road. Shame he could have pulled over rather than have this happen. Regards
For those who’ve never driven a “high profile vehicle” in high winds, they can be blown over while parked to avoid high winds, regardless of amount of load. I seriously doubt that this driver left the roadway and tried to recover at speed, only because the vehicle is on the roadway instead of in the ditch. Had the driver tried to recover after leaving the roadway the rollover would have occurred when overcorrecting and put the truck in a corn field.