Wonder what happened - but will never know

[74-911]

Saturday afternoon, eastbound IH10 between SATX and Houston, perfect weather. Crested a small hill and saw nothing but brake lights and cars on both sides of the road with flashers going and people running across the road into the median. As we got closer saw a SUV in the median sitting on it's roof, it had obviously rolled several times, with a trail of clothes, opened suitcases leading to it.

A woman was laying in the grass in the median with 4-5 people kneeling around her and another woman walking around with a small girl (3-4 yrs old) clutched to her chest and holding her head so she couldn't look around. Another 4-5 people at the SUV appeared to be trying to get someone else out of it.

We eased on by as there was nothing we could do and already a pretty good crowd milling around. About 10 minutes on up the road we met a highway patrol car with every light flashing hauling a$$ towards the accident. No idea where an EMS would have come from to get to the site but it would take a while.

Traffic was the usual IH10, fairly heavy and moving 75-80 for the most part. Assume the driver dozed off or was distracted by something, got into the rumble strips or shoulder, over corrected and rolled it.

Can't help but wonder what happened to make it roll and to the people inside. You hope no one was seriously injured but as it will most likely make no newscasts or papers we will probably never know. Whatever the case, one families life will never be the same.

[wdfifteen]

You might check here:

http://www.navbug.com/i-10_road_conditions.htm

[bivenator]

I make that trip between Houston and San Antonio often and have seen scenes as you described fairly often. You see the car, debris and EMS but are left to wonder how they lost control on a mostly straight two lane well maintained interstate.

I am guessing that many are due to over correction after dropping the tires off the pavement but the shoulder is a full lane wide so it always hard to picture.

[sammyg2]

How long did it take to get past the wreck due to rubbernecking?
Around here, the average is about 20 minutes if all lanes are still wide open.
One lane closed turns into 30 to 45 minutes. All because people have to slow to a crawl to check it out.

[epbrown]

At least there was something going on. I can't tell you how many times I've sat in Chicago-area traffic thinking there's a problem up ahead only to find... nothing.

[oldE]

Single vehicle roll-overs where they don't leave the road surface are hard to fathom, but they happen more often than they should.

I came across a first generation Chrysler LS on its roof on the centre line one day and from the marks it was easy to see what happened.
On a straight stretch of road, the driver managed to drop a wheel off the right side of the pavement (there was a 2 ft. paved shoulder), yanked the wheel to the left and the car responded and shot across her lane and the other before she overcorrected. Thankfully there wasn't anyone coming the other way.
She just touched the gravel on the other side before her second correction took effect which headed the car back toward the right. Due to the rapid course corrections, the car had rolled on its suspension and the left side tires had enough traction to act as a fulcrum and up and over it went, still skidding along on its roof for a few yards.

Conditions: dry pavement, mid day light traffic, open fields on either side of a limited access two lane road. Driver innattention and inappropriate control input.

Be careful out there.
Best
Les