TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—Pascack Road southbound was shut down at Washington Avenue the morning and afternoon of July 13 after a white tractor-trailer carrying scrap metal components snapped on the road, its deck broken and sidewalls pursed open at the halfway mark.
Police were diverting southbound traffic on Pascack Road in front of Bethany Church to Colonial Boulevard; traffic was still passable, pending offloading and towing operations, on Pascack Road north.
Metal from the trailer, from Teplitz Inc. of Nanuet, N.Y., scraped asphalt for approximately 100 feet before coming to a halt, its tail in the air, essentially at Bethany’s driveway, 570 Pascack Road.
Nobody was reported injured, Washington Township Police Capt. John Calamari told Pascack Press in the aftermath.
He said the semi — “it just snapped and it’s just sitting” — would remain in place while it was unloaded and the company made related arrangements.
Calls to dispatch came in starting at 9:05 a.m.
The area already feeds into a bottleneck; the township is working to lock down construction and road widening easements in preparation for a shared service agreement with Bergen County for overhaul of the Pascack Road–Washington Avenue intersection.
There also is a multimillion-dollar emergency services building rising not far away, on Washington Avenue, adjacent to the site of the current firehouse.
“Right now it looks like the trailer was loaded properly. It looks like it was not overloaded or anything like that; it had a few motor vehicle violations. So it looks like the trailer just failed,” Calamari said.
“We went up and took a look inside. Nothing appeared improper,” he added.
Calamari said the trailer, a 2002 model hauled by a Mack truck, was rated for 80,000 pounds and the driver was carrying 60,000 pounds loaded “and the trailer certificate and all that was in order.”
He said he wasn’t sure why the truck was on Pascack Road or where it was headed, and that “the cause of the failure of the trailer itself is unknown at this point.”
Cargo was contained in boxes on pallets: car alternators, air conditioner compressors, and the like.
The driver received summonses over maintenance of lamps, hazardous tire, and unsafe vehicle. “The ‘unsafe vehicle’ was kind of a catch-all, and obviously if the vehicle failed it was unsafe,” Calamari said.
He said the roadway suffered scrape marks, though the impact “didn’t crack the pavement or anything like that.”
He said the driver “was certainly startled… He got composed fast but he was definitely shaken.”
Calamari added that the morning’s spectacle proved entertaining to children at the township’s summer rec program, walking from Memorial Field to Bethany Church.
He said officers were preparing to notify families of a plan to arrange pickups from Bethany at an alternate exit.
“That’s still up in the air, we haven’t resolved that yet. The guys are on the scene are working; they’re trying to get an ETA on the forklifts and everything else that’s going to be needed,” he said.
Doubtless less entertained was Teplitz Inc.’s owner, who also was on the scene promptly, said Calamari.
Pascack Press left a message at Teplitz Inc. seeking comment for this story but did not hear back promptly. We will update this story as needed.
