Clearing the roadway after a major crash

We’ve all been there...

Sitting in traffic, moving slowly and wondering if we’ll ever get past the incident that’s causing the delay.

Thousands of motorists experienced that scenario yesterday during a busier-than-usual morning rush hour.

One particularly bad area was on eastbound I-10 south of downtown Phoenix due to a 2 a.m. produce truck crash.

Maybe you’d agree that one of the most frustrating aspects of a traffic jam is the not knowing...

Not knowing how many cars are ahead. Not knowing what happened. Not knowing why it’s taking so long to clear up.

While we can’t answer those first questions for you, we can shed a little light on some of the work that goes on at the scene of a major crash. Of course every response varies, depending on the circumstances – severity of the crash and injuries, number of vehicles involved and even the weather – but this video gives a good glimpse of the comprehensive efforts taken by ADOT and our partner agencies to clear the roadway and make it safe for drivers as quickly as possible.

ADOT Public Information Officer Tim Tait sums up the impact of yesterday’s crash...

“More than 260,000 vehicles a day travel through this point on I-10 each morning, which is a tremendous volume of traffic and that was all impacted this morning by this crash,” Tait says. “Once the immediate scene is cleaned up, ADOT’s job isn’t done. We’ll have to replace the barrier that was damaged and we’ll have other work to do to make sure that the roadway is returned to a safe condition after this crash.”

For more on the role ADOT plays after a crash, take a look at these blog posts and videos from last year (find them here and here).