1982 Caldecott Tunnel inferno changed hazmat cargo rules of the road in California
With the variety of accident-avoidance technology now available on passenger cars, there is growing interest in making it mandatory on the big rig trucks that travel the highways each day. It's the kind of thing that could have made a difference in a tragic accident more than 40 years ago that changed California's rules of the road.
Most of us drive to work every day, never really knowing what kind of danger may be rolling alongside us. Federal highway safety officials are looking for ways to cut down on the number of truck accidents, especially those that involve hazardous materials.
"There's over two million shipments of hazmat every day in the United States of America," said former U.S. Department of Transportation Deputy Administrator Bob Richard. "And most of the incidents involved flammable liquids, primarily combustible liquids for fuel oil for homes, home heating. Human error is the biggest contributing factor."
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But some of the laws governing hazmat on California roads were born out of one tragic incident in the Bay Area - specifically, the Caldecott Tunnel fire. At about midnight on April 7, 1982, a woman - later ruled to be legally drunk - entered the third, northernmost bore of the tunnel between the North Oakland hills and Orinda.
She struck the wall, blocking the roadway about halfway through the tunnel. A tanker truck hauling gasoline crashed into her and then was struck from behind by a bus, which somehow ended up outside the tunnel. The gasoline tanker inside ignited, creating an inferno that killed seven people.
Caltrans spokesperson Bart Ney was just a kid at the time, but he remembers it.
"Being a Bay Area native, that was a pretty big catastrophe that happened, where an explosion took place in the Caldecott Tunnel," he said. "The tunnel sort of magnified the explosion. And it made some changes in the California Vehicle Code."
You'll no longer see tanker trucks hauling hazardous materials in the tunnels unless you travel pretty early. Signs say trucks hauling hazardous materials are now restricted between the hours of 3 to 5 a.m. And the Caldecott fire even changed how tunnels are built.
"HVAC systems improved greatly after the accident in 1982," said Ney. "And you can clearly see that in the new fourth bore tunnel at the Caldecott because the jet fans that we installed in there are completely visible to motorists."
But all the tunnels have fans, and they came in handy in 2015 when another fiery car crash left one tunnel filled with smoke. And for those caught in a fire, there are also several emergency doors allowing people to escape to the adjoining tunnel. They actually existed back in 1982, but there is no evidence that they were ever used in that fire.
Ney said it's not unusual for laws to change after a tragedy--in fact, that's the normal evolutionary process.
"What the state does is, it looks at the necessity - there is a need to move these things - but how can we move them in the safest manner possible and on the best routes possible?" said Ney. "And some routes just aren't conducive to that."
Looking at the Caldecott Tunnel, that seems obvious now. But sometimes it takes the unimaginable to make us realize the danger that was there all the time.