LEEDS — A couple en route to a Mazda Miata conference in Grand Junction, Colorado, had their trip interrupted Tuesday night when they lost control of a trailer they were hauling and ended up partially hanging over a bridge on Interstate 15 near Leeds.
Just before 8 p.m., a 55-year-old woman was driving northbound on I-15 in a white Ford F-350. The Ford was pulling a trailer loaded with two Mazda Miatas, Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Joe Pastor said, and the trailer started whipping from side to side.
The woman and her passenger, a man in his mid-50s, tried to regain control of the trailer by steering and using trailer brakes, but the truck and trailer whipped across both lanes.
The trailer pushed the truck onto a concrete barrier on a bridge between mile markers 19 and 20. The back left tire of the truck went over the barrier, leaving the truck hanging partially over the barrier with a 50- to 60-foot drop beneath it.
The trailer, which was still attached to the truck, jackknifed during the incident and hit the rear right side of the truck. The Miata at the front of the trailer also hit the side of the truck.
No one was injured during the incident, and no other vehicles were involved.
Both the driver and passenger were wearing their seat belts.
There was some damage to guardrails and the concrete barrier as a result of the incident, Pastor said.
Though he was not certain what caused the trailer to whip, Pastor guessed it was probably a mechanical failure or poorly distributed weight on the trailer.
Traffic was reduced to one lane on northbound I-15, and both northbound lanes were closed at times for short periods, while responders tried to position tow trucks to tow the vehicles away.
Travelers on the roadway should not have seen long delays, Pastor said, as responders were trying to keep the total closures as brief as possible.
In addition to Utah Highway Patrol, responders from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office and Leeds Fire and Rescue were also on scene.
This report is based on preliminary information provided by law enforcement or other emergency responders and may not contain the full scope of findings.
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- Trailer flips on I-15, spills contents into roadway; STGnews Videocast
- Confusion from medical episode lands car and driver in ditch
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Are the cars okay.?
“hangs above” is quite a stretch….
I suspect foul play here. I doubt that Mazda Miatas are welcomed in Utah.
a 50-60ft drop???! LOL, must be one hell of a deep culvert… either way it doesn’t look that deep…
should just say it’s 1000ft deep for the dramatic effect cuz it only looks 10-15ft deep in the pic…
and someone is blessed cuz those miatas look to be a-ok, thank the lord 🙂
Oh yes thank the Lord for the cars have been blessed
Are people driving too fast for conoitons, or in experienced in hauling things?.
LOL’D 😉
I guess this could happen if you put the name of your car on the window as “Fliyin Miata”, maybe the truck just got drowsy