Recent Trucking Spills No Laughing Matter for Transportation Industry

Two separate trucking accidents?caused major spills ?of tomatoes and Alfredo sauce onto highways on different sides of the U.S. within hours of each other in late August, Today reported. The first incident took place Aug. 29 in Vacaville, California, when a big-rig truck went through the center divider and crashed, injuring three individuals and spilling?more than 150,000 tomatoes ?across multiple lanes, which shut down one lane of traffic for at least six hours. The next day, one woman was injured and traffic was delayed after an 18-wheeler hauling?hundreds to thousands of jars ?of Alfredo sauce crashed in Memphis, Tennessee, spilling sauce across all lanes and requiring hours of cleanup, according to reports.

News outlets were abuzz over both incidents, with some journalists reporting on the initially “great” smell of the sauce, another warning in jest that any pesto-hauling truckers should “get off the road right now,” and the Sacramento Bee writing that it was “time to ketchup” after a?second tomato truck spill ?in California occurred the same week.

“It appears that social media is introducing humor into the situation by making these two losses the subject of memes,” said Fernando Batista , Associate Manager, Transportation,? Burns & Wilcox , Toronto, Ontario. “We have to remember three individuals were seriously injured. Someone could have lost their life.”

These high-profile incidents are also “a negative reflection on the industry itself,” Batista said, and come as transportation companies face pressing challenges, from the threat of nuclear verdicts to driver shortages and employee retention concerns. Major accidents also increase the cost of the insurance policies that trucking companies must carry in order to operate, including?Truckers Auto Liability Insurance , Transportation Pollution Liability Insurance, Motor Truck Cargo Insurance, Auto Physical Damage Insurance, and?Excess Liability Insurance .

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