Sleepy trucker dumped 40,000 pounds of chicken feathers on I-5

No one was injured. No other vehicles were involved.

But 40,000 pounds of feathers were dumped onto I-5 in Federal Way around 3 a.m. when semi-truck driver caused a roll-over crash.

The truck driver told a local reporter that he had fallen asleep.

“I drank coffee and took one of those pills that had caffeine”

Sleepy trucker, why were you hauling chicken feathers at 3 a.m.?

Reportedly, the driver had left Foster Farms in Kelso, Washington, and was heading north. He fell asleep, hit the guardrail, and then over-corrected, rolling the semi-truck.

The trucker, who was not named, told a reporter that this was his first “accident” in 27 years of driving.

The more I read about this morning’s 7-mile traffic jam on I-5, the angrier I got.

While any news story about billions of chicken feathers is funny (unless you were stuck in traffic on I-5 this morning), you can easily imagine a much different ending to this one.

The truck’s load could have been rolled onto an early-morning commuter, or an airport cab.

The sleepy trucker could have hit another vehicle.

He could have killed himself or someone else.

When your job is driving an 80,000 lb. semi-truck, feeling sleepy is truly dangerous.

This chicken-feather dump on I-5 was an inconvenient mess. Only chance kept it from being a fatal mess.

 

If you’re keeping track, there’s been around 400 semi-truck crashes in Washington State since January 1, 2018. 

 

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For many of us, losing a couple hours of sleep at night just means we’re a little less productive the next day.

What if being tired is actually dangerous?

What happens when sleep is a safety issue?