Ice truck crash closes Route 8
PENN TWP — The intersection of Route 8 and Dinnerbell Road will have temporary traffic signals for the next few weeks after a box truck flattened a metal utility pole, knocking down power lines and the existing signals in a Monday morning accident.
No one was injured in the 7:50 a.m. accident, but all four lanes of Route 8 were closed and traffic was detoured to Old Route 8 around the site for several hours while the truck and its load of bagged ice were removed and temporary traffic signals were delivered and set up.
Township police said the truck driver, Vaunden Brunn, 19, of New Kensington, was traveling north on Route 8 in the right lane when he approached the intersection, where a car had stopped for a red light.
Brunn tried to slow down, but he said his brakes didn't work as well as they should and he wouldn't be able to stop in time to avoid hitting the car. He swerved to the right and traveled into the yard of a rental property at the intersection to avoid a collision.
“I turned into the grass. I didn't want to hurt anyone else. Luckily, I didn't,” Brunn said.
He said he had little time to react.
Police patrolman Steve Setnar said Brunn's reaction might have saved the life of the person in the car in front of him.
“Thank God he did. Somebody could have been killed,” Setnar said.
After traveling into the yard, the truck slowly rolled onto its driver's side, landing on the metal utility pole.
The pole probably prevented the truck from hitting the ground harder than it did and prevented him from being injured, Brunn said.“It was a real slow roll. The pole probably slowed it down,” Brunn said.Randy Davison, the township police transportation inspector, checked the Home City Ice freezer truck's brakes after a tow truck pulled it back onto its wheels. The inspection revealed the truck's air brakes were compliant, but the emergency brake on one side of the truck was not working, Setnar said. He said the truck was totaled and the accident remains under investigation.Hundreds of bags of ice were left on Dinnerbell Road near the intersection after the tow truck recovered the truck. A second Home City Ice truck came to gather and remove the ice.David Clark, service manager for Traffic Control Equipment and Supplies, which maintains traffic signals for the township, said it will take two weeks to a month to replace the pole and make other repairs.Pennsylvania Department of Transportation workers placed electronic message boards informing motorists of the closed road on Route 8 and Dinnerbell Road. Route 8 reopened at 1 p.m.Responding to the accident were the Penn and Middlesex township police and fire departments, Saxonburg Fire Department fire police, PennDOT, West Penn Power and Century Link.
