Edible Road Hazards

The latest incident took place June 5 in a meat-related mishap involving 70,000 pounds of bacon that came spilling out of a tractor-trailer in Wilmington, Illinois, due to an accident with a passenger train. According to NBC Chicago, an Amtrak train en route from San Antonio to Chicago collided with a truck that was obstructing the tracks. The impact split the trailer in two, sending the packaged pork product spilling out in all directions. The truck driver reportedly escaped from the rig before the accident. Eleven people were treated for minor injuries at area hospitals, United Press International said.

In January, 45,000 pounds of beer spilled onto the road. In Pleasanton, California, a truck carrying the product overturned when the driver had a coughing fit so bad he briefly blacked out, ABC 7 reported. The thousands of cans of Coors Light and Pabst Blue Ribbon blocked two lanes of the interstate for several hours early in the morning of Jan. 8. The trucker was treated for minor injuries. It was not reported whether any of the beer was taken down and passed around by disgruntled drivers stuck in traffic.

Back in 2013, a nightmarish fondue-related scene played out in northern Norway, when nearly 60,000 pounds of caramelized brown goat cheese, called Brunost, caught fire inside a tunnel and burned for five days in mid-January. A tractor-trailer was hauling the cheese when the driver noticed the product was on fire and abandoned his vehicle inside the Brattli Tunnel at Tysfjord. No one was hurt in the incident.

“I didn’t know that brown cheese burns so well,” Kjell Bjoern Vinje, an official with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, told the British Broadcasting Corporation.

In what may have been fated to happen, a truck hauling pancake syrup crashed on the Buttermilk Pike overpass on Interstate 75 near Fort Mitchell, Ohio, on June 7, 2012, spilling the maple flavored, golden-hued, but mainly high-fructose corn syrup-based product across several lanes of traffic. Fort Mitchell Police Officer Mark Spanyer described the clean-up as “a royal pain in the butt,” the Associated Press reported. An extra-tall stack of pancakes would have been required to tackle the mess.

In a twofer back in 2009, there were two spills in one day in Utah, involving the makings of a great barbecue: burgers and beer. The first accident happened around 5 a.m. Feb. 17, when a trucker apparently dozed off and slammed his rig into a concrete barrier in the median of Interstate 15 in North Salt Lake, then hit an overhead sign that tore the trailer open, spilling about 40,000 pounds of hamburger patties onto the roadway, according to the Deseret News. The accident closed down the freeway for more than four hours. The driver was unhurt.

Just two hours after the first accident, a tractor-trailer hauling beer hit a guardrail on Interstate 84, near the city of Morgan. The vehicle flipped onto its side, sending Fat Tire beer onto the roadway. That driver was reportedly unhurt as well.

Next time you’re on the road, be sure to watch out for big rigs, and perhaps carry a cooler in the car, since you never know when free beer or bacon may be headed your way.