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Saturday, March 27, 2010

Troopers Investigate Car vs. Mattress Crash… Mattress Wins

Location: I-95 southbound, south of the Churchmans Road overpass, Newark, Delaware

Date of Occurrence: Saturday, March 27, 2010, 3:11 p.m.

Vehicles:
1999 Chevrolet Blazer, operated by Latoya Rivera, 27, of Wilmington, Delaware
Vehicle also occupied by Rivera’s two daughters, 2 and 5 years-old
1997 Dodge Ram, operated by David R. Robinson, 33, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Resume: Earlier this afternoon, Troopers responded to the area of I-95 southbound, south of the Churchmans Road overpass, for a vehicle crash.

This investigation revealed the 1997 Dodge was hauling a mattress southbound on I-95. The mattress came lose and flew off of the truck and into the roadway. The Chevy came along and ran over the mattress. The mattress lodged underneath the Blazer causing it to overturn multiple times.

All three occupants in the Blazer were transported from the scene to Christiana Hospital where they were treated with non-life threatening injuries.

The operator of the Dodge, Mr. Robinson, remained at the scene after the crash. He was cited with operating a vehicle with an unsecured load.

Traffic was impacted for about one hour.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

people from pa. should be banned from driving

Anonymous said...

I disagree. You should always drive with enough space that you can stop if anything goes wrong on the roadway. According to the laws of physics the mattress upon leaving the vehicle would have still continued forward and not magically stopped where it fell off. It means the vehicle was following too closely and/or not paying attention. Now the Dodge driver is still at fault for not securing his load but there's a thing called defensive driving that no one seems to understand anymore.

Anonymous said...

You have got to secure your load. There is no such thing as over kill when securing items on your vehicle. You can get a good set of straps for around 20 or so dollars. My rule when it comes to strapping stuff down in the bed of my truck is when I think I have enough straps on the item, I add 2 more for back up.

Anonymous said...

I was in the lane right next to the Blazer. The mattress did not cause the accident. There was some type of bag in the road. The blazer ran over the bag and then lost control. When I realized she was going to hit the bag, I swerved to the the shoulder because I wasn't sure what her car would do. The blazer tipped over and slid accoss three lanes of traffic.

I tried to call the Delaware State Police and tell them what really happened. They never called me back so I guess they aren't interested. The pickup probably lost the bag along with the mattress.

It might be possible that she ran over the mattress before she hit the bag, but I did not see that.

Anonymous said...

8:51 PM you would be a good citizen if you contacted Mr. David R. Robinson of Philadelphia, PA andlet him know you witnessed this accident...it would probably save him lots of dollars..

Anonymous said...

Who's to say that the bag didn't come from the person who had the unsecured mattress????? Isn't it possible that he has an unsecure bag as well???