I-45 Crash Near Palmer Shuts Down Interstate For More Than 12 Hours

If you were wondering why traffic was so bad near Palmer yesterday, NBC in Dallas-Fort Worth has the reason why.

Around 4:20 AM yesterday, a Dodge Ram had stalled on the outside lane of I-45 southbound near mile marker 258. The vehicle did not have hazard lights on. We don’t know how long the car had stalled there, but we do know that a semi-truck crashed into the back of the Ram.

The semi-truck tried to drive away and then caught fire. Both drivers were caught in their vehicles and had to be extracted by emergency crews. They took both to the hospital, but the truck driver refused medical treatment.

The semi-truck was carrying empty plastic bottles, filling the air with toxic smoke and damaging the roadway. Workers closed the area until 4:40 PM to complete the cleanup and repair. Traffic had to be diverted to the Parker Hill Road exit.

As soon as you sense a problem with your car, one of your first moves should be to turn on your hazard lights. This is the signal that lets other drivers know you have a serious problem and to stay back.  Stopping a car on an interstate without these lights on creates crashes like these.

We expect cars on an interstate to go at a minimum speed. If you’re slower than that speed, or stopped like in this case, you become harder to dodge because you’re not traveling with the flow of traffic.