Chapter 61

4/23/2005 

Ch 61 South by Southwest - A date with destiny               Frequent Flyer-Driver                                 

Not getting much feedback lately- Audience may be on spring break or getting bored with blog. I need to document these episodes for my own recall later anyway.

Guy in Albany just had to have a Silver/Silver leather $46,00 BMW by the close of business on Friday. So I flew south to Baltimore, MD on SouthWest Air for $88 (cab was $25 to go 16 mi to dealer-try not to use taxis) to meet Destiny who would give me the car keys before the sales department at the dealership was even open. Gave a check for car but got no paperwork- "will Fed Ex". Drove the car back in time for the sale.

Eventful drive home avoiding the closed NJ Turnpike (article below- avoid those truckers) added a little time to the trip. Had a little accident myself lately. Took 12 stitches wrestling with a pine tree at John Lee's- photo from Masseri- Ferrari dealer at Greenwich CT - picked up a BMW across the street.

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Fiery Turnpike crash kills 3, closes highway in S. Jersey

Saturday, April 23, 2005

BY JOE MALINCONICO Star-Ledger Staff

Three people, including a South Jersey man, were killed on the New Jersey Turnpike in Burlington County early yesterday morning when a tractor-trailer rammed into traffic that apparently had slowed because of overnight pavement repairs.

The 1:10 a.m. crash, which involved four trucks and a car, ignited a massive fire that burned for four hours and damaged the road so badly that a 16.5-mile stretch of the northbound highway was closed between Interchange 4 in Mount Laurel and Interchange 6 in Mansfield for more than a half day.

Hundreds of motorists found themselves stuck on the Turnpike in the middle of the night with no way to get off, their way to the nearest exit blocked by the fiery wreck. Many simply went to sleep in their vehicles.

Not until dawn were highway crews able to clear a path for the stalled motorists to drive off along the shoulder of the road. By then, service trucks had to respond to the scene to help drivers who had run out of gasoline or had drained their car batteries.

The ripple effect of the Turnpike closing caused morning traffic jams on other major roads in southern and central New Jersey, with problems spilling into afternoon commute. Not until 4:35 p.m. was the Turnpike reopened.

The driver of the tractor-trailer that crashed into the other vehicles was killed. State Police identified him as Arnold R. Johnson, 55, of Bridgeton, Cumberland County.

The vehicle's tractor belonged to Ryder Truck in Cherry Hill and its trailer, containing a shipment of Mystic ice tea, was owned by HLC Equipment Holdings in Vineland.

Also dead were the driver and a passenger from a truck owned by a Vermont-based construction company. They were identified as Joshua Nowak, 24, of Rutland, Vt., and Brian Douglas, 26, of Grandville, N.Y. State Police did not know who was the driver.

"We've got a lot of people who are upset here," said Stan Duda, chief operating officer of John A. Russell Corp., based in Rutland, Vt. "But until we get 100 percent confirmation, we're not at liberty to say anything."

Basically, authorities said, the tractor-trailer hauling the ice tea was heading north near Interchange 6 when it came upon slower traffic, the result of road repairs that shut two of the three lanes of the highway a few miles to the north.

The tractor-trailer first hit a 1998 Chevrolet Cavalier driven by Randall Billian, 48, of Rochester, N.H., knocking the car off the road. The Cavalier caught fire, but Billian managed to get out before it became fully engulfed and was not seriously hurt, police said.

The ice tea truck then crashed into the construction truck from Vermont, which it "swallowed," according to state trooper Mark Manzo, the lead investigator. Those two vehicles were so completely destroyed in the fire that police initially did not realize they were two separate trucks.

The two burning trucks banged into a tractor-trailer from Philadelphia carrying kitty litter, which then hit a fourth truck driven by a man from Tennessee. Neither of those drivers were seriously hurt, police said.

The kitty litter actually absorbed some of the diesel fuel that had spilled on the road, police said.

Burning debris from the crash became stuck to the pavement, forcing the Turnpike to repair a 130-foot-long section of the road before it could reopen for traffic more than 15 hours after the crash.

"The temperature of the fire and the scope of the accident caused a large area to be damaged," said Steve Dilts, deputy executive director of the Turnpike.

Normally, emergency road crews would have redirected the hundreds of cars stuck behind the blaze to make U-turns through gaps in the metal highway divider.

But Turnpike spokesman Joe Orlando said there wasn't enough room for the traffic to maneuver safety, so authorities decided it would be best to have the drivers wait until morning.

Joe Malinconico covers transportation. He may be reached at jmalin conico@starledger.com or at (973) 392-4230.