{"id":43161,"date":"2021-12-18T02:45:54","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T09:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-trucks-carrying-onions-crash-in-matter-of-weeks-on-coal-bank-pass\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:12:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:12:04","slug":"two-trucks-carrying-onions-crash-in-matter-of-weeks-on-coal-bank-pass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/two-trucks-carrying-onions-crash-in-matter-of-weeks-on-coal-bank-pass\/","title":{"rendered":"Two trucks carrying onions crash in matter of weeks on Coal Bank Pass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Truck
Truck drivers face steep grades and narrow lanes of travel on Red Mountain, Molas and Coal Bank passes on U.S. Highway 550 north of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Is U.S. Highway 550 north of Durango a corridor for transporting onions?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a crazy question considering two semitrucks crashed within six weeks of each other while coming down the 10,640-foot Coal Bank Pass in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

Both trucks were hauling onions.<\/p>\n

Road conditions weren\u2019t even that dicey.<\/p>\n

The first crash occurred at 12:09 p.m. Oct. 22 near mile marker 54, which is about halfway up Coal Bank Pass on the south side. The second crash was reported at 1:58 p.m. Dec. 7, near mile marker 51, also on the south side of the mountain pass near Cascade Creek, according to Colorado State Patrol.<\/p>\n

Charles Jones, the driver in the first crash, said he isn\u2019t surprised a second truck toppled within weeks of his crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cHauling onions, coming down that hill?\u201d he asked Friday upon learning of the second crash. \u201cYeah, well those onions are heavy loads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said he picked up his onions in Olathe, north of Montrose, and was taking them to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, where he had two stops.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking forward to getting down there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His truck weighed 79,000 pounds, just under the 80,000-pound limit, he said.<\/p>\n

Jones, who is based in Boise, Idaho, made it over Red Mountain Pass and Molas Pass, but he began to experience \u201cbrake fading\u201d coming down Coal Bank Pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t even have time to be scared,\u201d he said. \u201cI realized what was happening, but I didn\u2019t have time to be scared.\u201d<\/p>\n

The truck lost control and went off the shoulder of the road, according to a CSP crash report. As it left the road, the truck rolled onto the passenger side. It then traveled another 28 feet before \u201cstriking the side of the mountain,\u201d the report says.<\/p>\n

Jones was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and released the same day.<\/p>\n

The crash left him with a \u201cbig scar\u201d on his forehead, a \u201cwhacked out\u201d left arm, and a sore hip and buttock that \u201ccould just be old age,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He was back on the road as of Friday, where he was reached by cellphone.<\/p>\n

Jones has no idea what happened to the load of onions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know, man. I went to the hospital. That was the last time I saw that truck,\u201d he said. \u201cThe wrecker company was supposed to clean it up. Whatever they did with them, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said he put his destination into GPS, but certain roads were closed, so it rerouted him onto the mountain passes.<\/p>\n

Sgt. Nathan Lyons with the State Patrol said Jones was cited with careless driving. The responding trooper attributed the crash to driver inexperience.<\/p>\n

Lyons didn\u2019t have much information about the Dec. 7 crash, saying an accident report hadn\u2019t yet been approved as of Friday. But he said the truck lost control and went through a guardrail.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made a tremendous mess,\u201d he said of the onions.<\/p>\n

He said driver inexperience played a role.<\/p>\n

Jones said he has plenty of experience, and no amount of down-shifting or Jake braking would have prevented the crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they need to ban trucks that heavy coming over those three hills \u2013 rain, shine, sleet or snow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

first rig not surprised a second vehicle also lost control<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[2235,28,254,1384],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coal-bank-pass","tag-headlines","tag-road-crash","tag-u-s-highway-550"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85597,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43161\/revisions\/85597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43161"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}