A motorist captured striking video of a semi truck driver taking a runaway truck ramp on a steep Colorado interstate last week.
The video was captured on Friday, April 26, on I-70 near Silverthorne, Colorado, by motorist Jesse Terrell.
Terrell told KDVR that he had just exited the Eisenhower Tunnel when he noticed that something was very wrong with the truck traveling on the interstate in front of him. “He was starting to get upwards of 80, 85 miles an hour. The smell was horrible, just that burning rubber, and that’s when I knew, oh, his brakes are now gone,” Terrell said.
In the video, you can see that the truck goes almost all the way up the ramp before coming to a stop.
The Colorado State Patrol says that the truck driver made the right decision in taking the ramp and points out that there are no fines or citations for a truck driver who uses a ramp for the intended purpose. The towing fee to remove a semi truck from a runaway ramp can cost up to $10,000 however.
The incident happened just one day after 23 year old truck driver Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos caused a 28 vehicle pileup on I-70 west of Denver, Colorado. Four people lost their lives in the crash. Aguilera-Mederos told police that he lost his brakes on a mountainous stretch of the interstate and was captured on camera bypassing a runaway truck ramp. Aguilera-Mederos has since been charged with vehicular homicide.
You can view the video below.