A multi-million-dollar, six-axle crane went off the road and flipped near 90th Avenue and Oslo Road in Vero Beach on August 19, coming to rest in a drainage ditch as crews worked to remove it and residents renewed complaints about the truck traffic now squeezing through their neighborhood. Rain had caused water to pool on the low side of 90th Avenue, and neighbors say that kind of standing water hides what's really happening beneath the surface of the road.
Sally Rogers, who lives near where the crane came to rest and has driven 90th Avenue for 11 years, said the road is simply too narrow for the volume of heavy trucks now using it. Rogers told CBS12 that pooled water hides road conditions underneath, and she attributed part of the crash problem to the road itself. She drives 90th Avenue every day and says she now changes her driving habits whenever a truck or semi approaches on the narrower sections, pulling over and waiting for it to pass.
A Detour Born From a Bigger Project
The truck traffic didn't arrive by accident. The Florida Department of Transportation's Oslo Road interchange and widening project, a $95.78 million initiative awarded to Halley Engineering Contractors that broke ground in August 2023, is rebuilding the interchange where State Road 9/I-95 meets Oslo Road, with completion projected for spring 2027, according to FDOT District 4. As part of that project's scope, the state closed the connection between SW 82nd Avenue and Oslo Road in June 2025 and began building a new 13th Street SW to link 86th Avenue SW directly to 90th Avenue.
With 82nd Avenue closed, trucks started using 90th Avenue as their route, even though the project's own haul route plan had assigned trucks to 82nd Avenue and dump trucks are not supposed to use 90th Avenue under that plan, per CBS12's reporting. Rogers said commercial truck drivers now treat 90th Avenue as a thruway to State Road 60 and I-95, a pattern she and her husband have watched play out firsthand — she recounted a close call in which her husband, driving a Dodge 3500 dually, passed a truck pulling a trailer and their trailers touched during the maneuver.
A Road With a History of Deadly Crashes
The corridor's danger isn't just anecdotal. In July 2024, a 77-year-old pickup truck driver was killed on the 9000 block of 90th Avenue after veering across the center line and striking a Mack roll-off garbage dump truck head-on, according to Vero News. In August 2025, Florida Highway Patrol troopers charged a Vero Beach driver with DUI manslaughter in a May 2024 collision on northbound 90th Avenue east of I-95 that killed a 59-year-old bicyclist, the outlet also reported.
Rogers said she has reported multiple crashes on the stretch of road and has pressed Indian River County to conduct a traffic study on 90th Avenue and to send officials out to inspect the road in person. She described one especially tense moment when she requested that a county dump truck pass another county dump truck in the narrowest part of the road, and she says the county responded that it might conduct a study but should wait. The road also has no signage warning drivers that it narrows, she said.
Bridge Concerns and an Unanswered Question
Rogers has separately raised concerns about the bridge at 4th Street, telling CBS12 she once stopped and waited for a semi to pass there because the span felt too narrow to share. She said she does not know whether the bridge can structurally handle heavier commercial traffic, since it carries no posted weight limit. Under Florida Department of Transportation bridge management rules, public bridges must be inspected at least once every two years, and weight-limit postings are only legally required if maximum legal state loads exceed a bridge's operating stress capacity — a standard that does not necessarily reflect what a narrow, two-lane rural bridge feels like to drivers sharing it with commercial trucks.
Indian River County had not responded to CBS12's request for comment on whether it plans to add signage or redirect trucks to another route, the station reported. The county isn't standing entirely still on the corridor, however: in May 2024, it awarded a public works contract to Guettler Brothers Construction, LLC to reconstruct and pave 90th Avenue from an existing dirt road into a two-lane paved highway between 13th Street SW and Oslo Road, according to county procurement records.
Hazmat Response and Cleanup
Responding emergency units treated the crane rollover as a possible hazardous materials incident after the multi-axle vehicle overturned in the drainage ditch and leaked fluids, according to a Facebook post from local emergency responders. Crews remained on scene removing the crashed crane in the days after the rollover. Because the crash involved a commercial vehicle requiring wrecker removal, investigators are required under Florida law to complete a formal Long Form crash report within 10 days, though the official report itself will likely stay confidential for 60 days under Florida Statute 316.066, which shields personal information in crash records from public release.
The Oslo Road interchange has long been designated by the Indian River County Metropolitan Planning Organization as the county's top-priority Strategic Intermodal System project, intended to accommodate regional freight and population growth as the area continues to develop. That long-term goal offers little comfort to residents like Rogers navigating narrow rural roads today, and it remains an open question whether county officials will impose temporary weight limits, add warning signage, or direct trucks to an alternative haul route before the interchange project wraps up in 2027.
