The wife and I were driving up I-75 from Naples fl last Saturday,February 24th, shortly after noon. About a mile south of where I-75 crosses I-4 we came upon a very bad looking wreck of a van and travel trailer. It really affected the wife . We have been trying to find out if anyone knew something about it. The van(or suv) was turned on its side in the ditch facing south beside the north bound lane. Just behind it was a pile of what could only be described as kindling. It appeared to have been a trailer. It was also facking south and behind the van. Just as we arrived the emergency people were trying to get to the van and it was very crowded so we were not able to see anything. It really bothered us because we were pulling our trailer and had stopped for gas in Brandon or we would surely have been near the scene when this happened If any one knows what happened we surely would like to know.
Boater, We live near I-75 and I-4 in Brandon. I did not see any news on TV over this mess but from our years around here this is everyday stuff. The people around Tampa can not drive well at all. We had a head on wreck near the house on a short street (25 MPH) zone. Next block over, next day car crossed the road and run into persons front yard, hid a large rock. Car was a total lost and man was sent to hospital (cell phones are fun to play with). We see car wrecks about everyday on Hwy 60. We have been hit one time near here as well. We see people from Mexico running Red lights everyday and by look on they face you would think this is fun. Stops signs are only a suggestion. This is not to say all people from Mexico are poor drivers. Three weeks ago we were in San Diego near Mexico and found no problems on any roads. In the UK for two weeks and found one truck had dumped load on roadway. We did not see one wreck from any cars and all were on wrong side of the road. People here need to slow down to 75 MPH on our 45 MPH roads and we would have less troubles.
I do not know anything about that particular wreck, but I have seen 2 similar wrecks and had a friend involved in one that shut down I-85 south of Atlanta for almost 3 hours due to the fact that the propane tanks were on. In all three cases, the wreck was due to the fact that there was not the appropriate sway control on the travel trailers and in 2 of the cases including my friends, they were towing with a short SUV. From having discussions with my friend about his accident, he said that the suspension on the smaller SUV's is usually the culprit even if you have the correct sway control. Just information to ponder for all of you travel trailer owners.
