A semi truck accident on State Road 156 approximately four miles east of Vevay around noon on Monday closed the highway for several hours while workers removed the truck and then workers with the Indiana Department of Transportation fixed a large hole in the roadway.
Traffic was completely closed for several hours while the truck and its cargo of a roll of steel was removed from the scene; and was then opened for a single lane of traffic while the road was fixed. It reopened to regular traffic on Monday evening. While the state highway was closed, traffic was diverted using Markland Pike and Tapps Ridge Road.
The driver of the semi, Mike Neal, 70, of Crittenden, Kentucky, said that he was traveling west on State Road 156 and was hauling a coil of steel when, according to the police report filed in the Switzerland County Sheriff’s Department, the semi was going over a hump in the roadway when the left side hit the pavement and dug into the roadway. The report said that when that happened, the truck was thrown sideways, which caused Neal to lose control of the vehicle.
This also caused the trailer to twist , which caused the roll of steel that was on the trailer to shift to the left.
The report said that with the shift of the load and the fact that the steels was still attached to the semi, this stress caused the trailer to break — with approximately half of the trailer rolling over on its side and the other half stayed upright.
The coil of steel broke away from the trailer and landed on the roadway, flipping end over end three to four times before coming to rest beside the trailer.
Neal said that he had slowed down for a rough patch of the road and was going approximately 40-45 miles per hour when his truck hit the uneven area in the roadway. He said that when he hit that portion of the road, the semi began to bounce, which led to the accident.
Neal was uninjured in the wreck, and assisted officials in removing the truck and the steel.
Officers with the Switzerland County Sheriff’s Department, including deputy John Mills and deputy Chad Terpening, responded to the scene, along with Switzerland County Emergency Response and the Jefferson-Craig Volunteer Fire Department. State officials from INDOT were also at the scene.
