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Make way for trucklings

Boston Police report Officer Clifton Singletary was helping the driver of a wayward 18-wheeler stuck near the top of Beacon Hill navigate off the hill yesterday when somebody in the truck yelled the brakes had failed:

As the truck began to slowly roll out of control down Walnut Street, Singletary sensing danger ahead, immediately sped ahead to the intersection of Walnut and Beacon Streets where he sprung from his motorcycle, stopped traffic and began shouting at pedestrians to clear the area. With the traffic stopped, Singletary watched as the sixty foot flatbed truck sailed hauntingly through the intersection before running aground and coming to a crashing halt on Boston Common. Of the vehicles stopped at the intersection, Singletary noticed a Trolley Tour bus filled with small children. After looking up at the bus, Singletary said to himself, "God was with us today. It's a miracle that nobody got hurt."

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Comments

Too bad no one had a camera, sounds like a very cinematic chain of events!

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....they can actually conduct an investigation into why the brakes "failed."

Or would that be too much to ask? Because it's EMPTY. It should have had more than enough brake capacity to stop...so either there's a mechanical issue, or the driver didn't know how to properly use airbrakes.

Would it also be too much to ask that the driver be cited for ending up in a neighborhood he had no business being in?

It's not a "miracle" when something this dangerous happens because of willful actions. It's dumb shit luck.

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They towed the truck to some facility yesterday. They are probably getting a search warrant to inspect it today. They do actually have to concern themselves with dumb things like due process, etc, and not just decide "it's EMPTY" based on some internet guy's opinion.

I see you have quotes around the word "failed," so perhaps you believe they didn't actually fail and the truck driver intentionally barrelled down a steep incline and risked his life to drive into the Boston Common. MAYBE HE WAS A BPD PLANT AND IT WAS A FALSE FLAG OPERATION TO MAKE THEM LOOK GOOD!!! INFO WARS!!! ALEX JONES!!!1!

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Francis...ha ha, funny (really:)

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overheat / run out. Especially with the likely drastic amount of breaking that was being done to navigate that turn. Interstates don't have those runaway truck ramps just for show, ya know.

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Um, won't a truck stop if its in a low gear and the ignition is switched off? Was it an automatic transmission and had to be put in Park to stop it? I'm curious because I don't drive big trucks.

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don't have automatic transmissions. Unlike passenger cars and smaller trucks, automatics would be impractical on such vehicles because of the constant variability in engine load a driver is faced with (loaded vs. empty, flat road versus steep grade, etc.).

And shutting the ignition off once the truck is moving, even with the vehicle still in gear, doesn't really help you stop any faster - unless you're going really really slow. Besides the weight and momentum, especially if you stop on a grade, by shutting off the engine you've just killed the supply of air to your brakes.

Disclaimer - I am not, nor have I ever been, a trucker. However, several of my friends are.

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Large trucks even with automatic transmissions do not have "PARK" position on the transmission. It would not be strong enough to hold a loaded truck. They all have a switch labeled "PARK" which releases air pressure to the brakes and engages all the brakes on the truck. Truck brakes are spring loaded to always be on and use air pressure to disengage the spring. When ever you use either the brakes or parking brake you are releasing air pressure to allow the spring to engage the brakes. Very simple and reliable. 99.9% of the time the problem is the opposite. The vehicle loses air pressure to one or all brakes and they engage, causing those two dark random tire skids you sometimes see on the highway and blown tires. More than likely it was operator error, I.E. The driver exited the running truck to check his clearance and forgot to engage the parking brake. Truck run offs on highways are for overheated brakes at the bottom of hills. To much heat and the brakes lose friction and the ability to stop.

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Hmmmm, I guess I need to rescind my earlier comment that questioned the need for cops on motorcycles.

Nice job!

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Glad this ended up just being a weird, funny, stupid truck driver incident, rather than a truck crashing into a bus full of children.

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Indeed. Marty should buy this officer a beer and a slice of Penguin Pizza for his quick action and handling of the incident,

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I know, right? Also, massive UH second-guessing notwithstanding, it appears that the driver had actually done the right thing and called the police for help when he realized he had gotten himself somewhere he shouldn't have.

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..anxiously seeking some tiny sliver of significance to feed our delusions in this oppressively important place.

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Did the truck driver actually call for help or did the help find him in the form of, "Hey Buddy, what are you doing with an 18-wheeler up here?"

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There are places on the Hill that require deliveries........

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Too bad Boston got rid of the mounted unit -- he would have been historically accurate on Beacon Hill and done a great reenactment of Paul Revere at the same time.

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Only if this was the truck involved

http://www.infobarrel.com/media/image/133223_max.jpg

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Running Away, The Truck Is Running Away!

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Just be glad there weren't any wheelchair ramps. The truck might have hit the frog pond

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Murphy is working on it.

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After looking up at the bus, Singletary said to himself, "God was with us today. It's a miracle that nobody got hurt."

No. It's you doing your job heroically that allowed for nobody to get hurt, Officer Singletary.

If anything, God created a situation with a runaway truck up on Beacon Hill and a trolley full of children for it to smash. Some God that is. I'm glad we've got you, and not God, on our side.

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Three cheers for Officer Singeltary, could have been a horrific disaster.

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