What is up with that stretch of road? We have had at least four serious accidents along that same stretch of road on route 206 in the last two years. Good grief.

Most of these trucks use 206 illegally. Most are banned from RT 206 unless making a local delivery. I don't know why the police do not enforce this law. It was passed an enforced in 1999, then challenged, then rewritten but it is in effect and rarely enforced.

Would that be enforced by state police or local? Is that the issue?

There isn't one sign that says no trucks. I doubt it's not a truck route

That stretch has always been a problem for some reason. They used to have signs posted reading "High Fatality" zone or area, I can't recall which. Don't know why they were taken down.

@ Larry how do u know that most are using the highway illegally are u a trooper or an officer or do u have a CDL license @ Claire both can enforce the law @Brian it is a truck route

what leads you to believe that it was the trucks fault?

From the report, it sounds like the car headed south veered into the truck's lane. The tractor trailer driver does not appear to be the one at fault in this accident.

people drive like idiots over there. i work in streets of chester, and i have never seen such bad drivers in my life.

@ Claire, can be enforced by either local or State Police

@Brian, it is not an approved truck route and specifically not part of the NJ highway network.

For anyone interested, Good article on the history of the the "Truck Ban"
http://www.ilsr.org/rule/vehicle-limitations/2590-2/

Facts from NJ about the laws
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/about/press/2007/012507.shtm

NJ Large truck Network current laws:
http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/freight/trucking/regulations.shtm

@ Brad, take a look at the the links I posted. Been following this since 1999 and it is a shame how its been handled.

check her phone she was probably on it

@ larry since you dont have the gacts of the accidents dont assume the truck is at fault, again the trucks are allowed to use 206 if the load starts and or terminared in NJ

@ Brad, Hi, I never said the truck was at fault. I just think the trucks tend to make the accidents worse on an already somewhat dangerous road.

You seem interested in 206 but not fully informed. The trucker's load would have to start or end along 206, such as a delivery. Does not matter where the load originated, in fact saying it has to be originated in NJ is exactly why the first truck ban law was challenged, that wording was deemed to favor NJ truckers and discriminate against out of state truckers. The law was heavily enforced when first passed in 1999, after it was re-written is when the enforcement stopped.

As of now, trucks may only use the secondary highway system for local deliveries, or to get food or fuel. Trucks properly using the secondary highway system must then proceed to the national highway system by the shortest route. Interesting example of this is Toy-R-Us trucks leaving Flanders and proceeding south to RT 287 - this is illegal, they are to make their way to RT 80 as it is the closest access to the national highway system. This makes most of the truck traffic through Chester and Peapack illegal, nobody is making deliveries in this area, they are cutting through from RT 80 to RT 287 or eventually RT 78. I don't know if you are a Police officer, trucker, etc but as good as the 2 Chester Police forces are, and many do understand this law, they don't enforce it even though they did back in 1999. Time for some more calls to the NJ DOT.

That road was designed in the late 20', early 30's and really has not been upgraded properly.Pretty much most of the accidents I have witnessed on 206 are in the straight stretches, where folks figure they can stare at the cellphone a bit longer etc. Last 2 good wrecks I've seen involving trucks, the truckers did all they could and then some to get out of the way of the car. Looks like this guy did too. The real enforcement we need to see is the cellphone/texting. Police could easily write 100 tickets a day just standing on the islands at the 24/206 intersection. I drive with my eyes on the road and the cars coming at me.You can spot the cellphone users at 100 yards.

Cell phone usage in cars should be banned altogether. It serves no useful purpose and many drivers obviously have little common sense or self-restraint. HEAVY fines and the threat of losing one's driving prvilege would prove to be a sound deterrent and lives would be saved, there is no doubt. Our society is way out of control and action must be taken to save it from complete destruction. Making cell phone usage in automobiles illegal would be a great place to start.

Ditto to the amount of tickets the police could issue. Try standing on the old stone bridge in Long Valley one day in rush hour. Last time I crossed it, at least one in every three cars had a phone stuck in their ear. As far as that trucker being lawfully on 206 or not, it appears it was the other driver who rammed him, so that seems to be a lot more incriminating than the trucker's POSSIBLE mis-use of the roadway.

There can always be extenuating circumstances, so I will not jump to the conclusion that it was distracted driving - though that is such a strong possibility in any accident today. We might look at the other perspective -- that this accident with another passenger vehicle may have been a much worse tragedy. Sounds like the tractor trailer driver did a pretty good job of managing his vehicle and avoiding further injury.

I'd be shocked if she wasn't on her cell phone. My heart is still pounding thinking of the accident I successfully avoided last week on Route 24 in LV at the curve by the church with the crucifixes. I was heading from Chester and a car was coming at me almost completely in my lane. Almost ran off the road to avoid him. He/she had no idea what almost happened. Praying for this woman.

Hey Larry. How would you know if most of the trucks shouldn't be on 206? Do you check their bill of ladings as they pass through? There are many stores and businesses that receive deliveries daily between the 287 corridor to the 80 corridor. Most truckers would prefer to drive on interstate roads instead of state roads with stop lights any day, so most likely they are making a local delivery if they are on state roads. Also the law reads no trucks that are 102" wide, a lot of trailers are 96" wide. Also Larry, you would prob be the 1st one to bitch at a higher charge if you had a delivery that was forced to travel an additional 30/40 miles. As far as toys r us Larry... Their trucks are 96" wide, so they are legal to dive on these roads. The law was a bad law when passed and that's why no one enforces it. if a trucker is near the Chester area and it is an 8 mile drive to interstate 80 and a 10 mile drive to 287, is it really reasonable for the trucker to drive 8 miles to 80 then 18 miles to 287 then 20 miles to the 206 exit, when they could've just driven 2 extra miles and been at the same point. If trucks are so dangerous, I would think the less miles they have to travel the better. Just saying. Can't believe you even brought up truckers, when it states that the auto crossed the center line. Put your cell phone and burger down and watch the road.

dialing and texting while driving will eventually be illegal AND seriously enforced AFTER we get tired of the carnage. sadly, many innocent victims will be crippled and killed before we finally act.

I

3 years ago I had the same car accident in almost same the same spot on 206 south. I went over the yellow line and hit a tractor trailer head on. To quote the police "your cell phone was neatly tucked in your purse". I have no memory of the accident, was told that an eye witness said I was driving perfectly fine when all of a sudden I jerked right into on coming traffic. We never figured out the reason ( maybe avoiding an animal??). I have had 9 surgeries to repair both of my legs, I will never walk like I used to, but the good news is I CAN WAlK! This was clearly my fault, I do not blame the truck driver but, I think 206 is a dangerous road and if it is true about the trucks illegally driving on them, that should be stopped. Speed limits are too fast for traffic with no divider in between north and south. My prayers to Diane for a speedy recovery, i hope your injuries are not as bad as mine were.

@ Mr T. Your post is not factual and not sure why the attack? I think truckers are generally very good drivers, just interested in safety on an already difficult road (No dividers, limited shoulder, deer closing, etc) . Point is, as I said, a large percentage of the trucks on 206 are driving there illegibly - this was proven when the traffic dropped by at least 40-50% when the police where pulling them over and ticketing in 1999 - most were trying to save just 5-10 miles Vs other routes.

Statistically the less 60-80,000 pound vehicles you have on a road the less accidents, and the less severe. As for me I don't eat in the car, text, or talk on the phone without a hands free, over 3 decades without an accident. I also don't eat Burger King, it is worse for you than driving on RT 206 while texting.

Something maybe we could agree about is the truckers are generally very good drivers, much better than auto drivers but the trucks are huge and can make an accident much worse.... I did witness a trucker coming south on 206 who neglected to see a stopped school bus (Lights flashing) and he ended up stopping 25 feet past the back of the bus after swerving into in the oncoming lane. He was not a good driver and had their been north-bound traffic he would have either had a head-on or took out the bus. Just one accident like this and the sentiment would change. I am not saying it will happen but it could.

@ Not Domino, I agree totoally, think of this all the time and am so thankful that no one else was hurt. Still think the road needs to be changed somehow, as said earlier dividers and slower speed limits would help in some areas.

Larry, I must know something about the law, because I knew that it wasn't all trucks that were restricted, just the ones that are 102" wide, which may i say, you failed to mention in your 1st post, when saying trucks are illegally traveling on 206. If you take into consideration, the number of business on 206 that get deliveries from trucks, and the ones that are under 102" wide, you probably have a very small % of trucks traveling illegally. I've been driving tractor trailer for 30yrs and run these roads daily. there is not one reason a truck cant safely navigate these roads. Also, they still make 96" wide trailers. Here is a few Companies that use them, UPS, FedEx, USPS, ABF,Overnight Ground force, shop rite and yes Toys R Us. All are legal to travel these roads. Now, a dump truck can legally weigh in 80,000-100,000lbs, and are much more unbalanced at this weight then a tractor trailer due to weight distrbution. Also an accident involving a 102" wide trailer and 96" wide trailer would be pretty much identical. You hit a nerve with me because, as always, someone finds a way to point the finger in the truckers direction. Remember, if you have it, a truck got it there

So Larry, I just did some research and turns out no trucks are illegal on state roads in NJ since 2006. Here is an article I copied from nj.gov;

On February 21, 2006, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals found New Jersey’s large truck routing regulations unconstitutional and NJDOT has repealed these rules and replaced them with regulations that re-established the truck routing restrictions that were in place before 1999. These regulations were adopted on June 22, 2006.

You seem to know the law well, but i guess you didn't know that it doesnt exist anymore.

You guy wanna go on about trucks----
What about all the trucks traversing Schooley's Mountain?
Talk about a tragedy waiting to happen!

The Mountain has a weight limit for trucks.
Cops wouldn't pull over trucks that they suspected of exceeding that limit because then they would then have to escort the truck to a weigh station in Mt. Olive to determine if it was indeed over weight.
Several years ago, they changed the law to where, now if a truck was RATED at a certain weight, that was the weight at which it would be prohibited from entering certain roadways.
But the same trucks seem to be traversing the Mountain freely.

Why?