TOQUERVILLE — A motorcyclist is in the hospital after an improperly secured industrial water container flew out of the back of a pickup truck on Interstate 15 Monday and knocked the biker off his motorcycle.
“At approximately 3:45 (p.m.) the highway patrol was dispatched to a personal injury accident involving a motorcycle that went down on the interstate,” Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Joe Pastor said. “There was a 2013 Dodge pickup truck that had a large agricultural style water tank in the bed of the pickup truck.”
The empty tank was not secured properly and flew out of the bed as the driver attempted to pass a group of semitractor-trailers at about milepost 27 on southbound I-15, Pastor said.
“A 2000 Ducati motorcycle was traveling behind that vehicle when the water tank came out, subsequently causing the motorcycle and rider to go down.”
The rider, a man in his 40s from Arizona, was taken to Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George with unknown injuries, though they did not appear to be life-threatening, Pastor said.
“Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet,” the trooper said. “He was conscious and breathing when law enforcement and EMS arrived at the scene.”
The 66-year-old Nevada man driving the Dodge pickup was cited at the scene for failure to secure his load in the vehicle, Pastor said.
Traffic was slowed for about 30 minutes while the wrecked motorcycle was moved off the road and the rider attended to.
Units from the Utah Highway Patrol, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Hurricane Valley Fire and Rescue and Utah Department of Transportation responded to the 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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Why is it that some yahoo can’t take the time to make his load safe? Instead he is too lazy to spend five minutes tying the tank down. The net result is that someone could have been killed. The guy on the motorcycle is “lucky” that he was just injured.
This reminds me of an accident here five or so years ago which, as I recall, happened on River Road. Two guys driving a company truck didn’t take the time to hook up the safety chains to a trailer. It came loose and killed a motorcyclist. And as I also recall they just got a legal slap on the wrist when they should have gone to jail for manslaughter….
Utah is a loony backward right-wing state and is one among some other states that as a matter of policy will not prosecute vehicular homicides that they deem accidental, with the exception of being drunk or on drugs. Some idiot could run down a group of small school children at a crosswalk and not be criminally prosecuted if they were “adjusting the radio”or “spilled a hot drink on their lap” or some such nonsense. What’s given out are wrist slap misdemeanors and such bs. Welcome to the land of mormondumb.
From what I understand those type of tanks are used for concentrated agricultural chemicals and aren’t actually “water tanks”. Only a loon, nutter, or moron would attempt to use one to store drinking water. But it is a chemical tank
Yeah like the 100’s of Dirt and rock trucks all over southern Utah, those guys don’t give a GD who or what gets hit with crap coming off their trucks….where the heck is Udot and the UHP?
80 mph speed limit zone I believe. Two lanes heading south.
From the brief description it sounds like the unsecured load might have been buffeted by turbulence when he passed the semis…….If the Motorcycle was following a tad too closely, there would not be enough time to react, and he had no room to swerve to the right (semis in right lane).
My insurance company would file a civil claim against the guy that lost the tank, to recover for property damage.
Hey, this is southern Utah, nobody cares about quality and performance! I’ve never seen anything like this place, everybody hiring all the time, you try to make me do it right, I’ll just quit and move on to the next sucker!!!