They tried to warn a driver about his elevated truck bed. Then came the highway sign.
Traffic in Houston was shut down on an interstate highway Thursday night, causing massive delays as one side of the road was completely blocked, according to local media outlets.
What caused the delay was revealed in a pair of Facebook videos uploaded by user Carlos Escobedo on Thursday. In the videos, a dump truck with an elevated truck bed can be seen speeding down the highway with the normal flow of traffic, seemingly oblivious to the extra height the bed adds.
All told, the videos have been viewed more than 33 million times combined as of Friday afternoon.
In one video, Escobedo, who said in a post that he was with his father in the car, appears to try to get the truck driver’s attention as they pass him.
Posted by Carlos Escobedo on Thursday, August 24, 2017
In a second video, the truck is back in front of Escobedo’s car and runs into a highway sign just before an overpass. The truck’s bed rips the sign forward, but it appears that its supports stay anchored in the ground, causing the truck to flip, per KTRK.
KPRC reports that the truck driver’s condition is currently unknown.
The incident in Houston is not the first time this week that truck drivers have gotten into scary accidents as a result of elevated truck beds. Similar accidents took place in Sumter County, Florida, and Marysville, Ohio, though both trucks were stopped by bridges, not highway sign trestles. In both cases, no one was seriously injured.
As for the crash’s transportation impact on Houston, all debris was cleared Thursday night, according to KTRK and KPRC. However, Houston is one of several Texas cities slated to be hit by Hurricane Harvey late Friday and early Saturday, per CNN. No evacuations of the area have been ordered yet, per KTRK, but as a Category 3 storm, Harvey is expected to cause extensive property damage, and Forbes estimated that the total cost of such damages in the Houston area could be $20.8 billion.
This story was originally published August 25, 2017 at 4:55 PM with the headline "They tried to warn a driver about his elevated truck bed. Then came the highway sign.."