My only accident occurred April 2017, was turning right onto one lane for me onto a bridge, with two lanes going the other way, one straight, one left turn, left turn lane receded to allow for right turns...when I turned a car went past the white line and into my path, in the accident I shortened my turn and the rear tandem clipped cement barriers...no ticket issued, no other car involved....preventable because I should have stopped when car went past white line instead of cutting turn short..
Today, taking a right turn on a city street in St Louis, and a car did the same thing in what seems like a mirror situation...I stopped as quickly as I could, no damage, but light poles concrete barrier was between tandem wheels and had to back up into traffic to get them out...driver from dump truck held back traffic while I did this...so got out of it with no damage..
I think I stopped my turn from prior memory of other situation...
Well done! Thanks for sharing.
Sounds like you learned the lesson well!
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".
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My only accident occurred April 2017, was turning right onto one lane for me onto a bridge, with two lanes going the other way, one straight, one left turn, left turn lane receded to allow for right turns...when I turned a car went past the white line and into my path, in the accident I shortened my turn and the rear tandem clipped cement barriers...no ticket issued, no other car involved....preventable because I should have stopped when car went past white line instead of cutting turn short..
Today, taking a right turn on a city street in St Louis, and a car did the same thing in what seems like a mirror situation...I stopped as quickly as I could, no damage, but light poles concrete barrier was between tandem wheels and had to back up into traffic to get them out...driver from dump truck held back traffic while I did this...so got out of it with no damage..
I think I stopped my turn from prior memory of other situation...
Tandem:
Tandem Axles
A set of axles spaced close together, legally defined as more than 40 and less than 96 inches apart by the USDOT. Drivers tend to refer to the tandem axles on their trailer as just "tandems". You might hear a driver say, "I'm 400 pounds overweight on my tandems", referring to his trailer tandems, not his tractor tandems. Tractor tandems are generally just referred to as "drives" which is short for "drive axles".