ABSTRACT
A flatbed tractor-trailer carrying fifteen junked and flattened cars was traveling through downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on an interstate highway when the driver lost control of the vehicle. It grazed a concrete median and then ran into it. The fifteen cars, which had been in two stacks each retained by three steel wire ropes, slid off the flatbed. Twelve of them went over the median into oncoming traffic causing three fatalities and two serious injuries.
Reconstruction of the accident showed that two of the three ropes retaining the forward stack of cars broke long before the vehicle reached the accident site. They failed by friction and wear because they were not tightened sufficiently. The vehicle entered a curve in the highway at about 60 m.p.h. (96.6 km/hr). This caused the load to shift and the right side of the trailer to leave the ground. The consequent loss of control caused the six cable tighteners on the left side of the trailer to grind against the concrete median generating a cloud of concrete dust. The heat generated softened the wire ropes sufficiently to cause tensile overload failures. Loss of the load followed immediately.
