Two big rigs collided on westbound Interstate 10 in Redlands before dawn Friday, leaving one truck's cab smashed and detached from its trailer while a second trailer split in half after striking a freeway support beam. Officers responding to the scene found an unconscious person lying on the ground between the Alabama Street off-ramp and the Tennessee Street on-ramp, raising the possibility that the person had been ejected from one of the trucks.
The crash was reported around 3:05 a.m., according to the California Highway Patrol incident log, as detailed by KTLA. A CHP spokesperson confirmed that multiple victims were transported to a local hospital, though their conditions were not immediately known. The cause of the crash was not immediately known either, and an investigation remains underway.
Ramp Closures Snarl Traffic as Freeway Stays Open
CHP closed the Tennessee Street and Alabama Street ramps during the investigation, with closures expected to remain in place until about 9 a.m. The 10 Freeway itself remained open during the ramp closures, according to the same report. The report did not identify a hospital for the trauma patients.
The mechanics of the crash — a driver possibly thrown from the cab and a trailer torn apart against a support beam — point to the outsized physical forces involved when big rigs collide at freeway speed. Federal motor carrier safety regulations under 49 CFR § 392.16 require commercial drivers to wear a seat belt while operating a truck on public roads, a standard laid out in the federal code as compiled by Cornell Law School. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data shows nearly 75% of unbelted large-truck occupants who died were totally ejected from the truck, per reporting from FreightWaves. Separately, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration figures found that 69.3% of commercial truck drivers killed in U.S. crashes in 2022 were not belted in, according to a safety bulletin from Idealease. It remains unknown whether restraint use played any role in Friday's crash.
A Corridor With a Troubled Recent Stretch
This is not the first serious incident on this exact section of westbound I-10 in recent days. Just nine days earlier, a fatal hit-and-run near the Tennessee Street off-ramp killed a 27-year-old pedestrian, as Hoodline reported in its story, Redlands Hit-And-Run Kills Pedestrian. A separate six-vehicle crash involving a semi-truck was reported in nearby Ontario. And San Bernardino County Fire Department crews performed a complex extrication in Fontana after a sedan became pinned beneath a loaded tractor-trailer on the same freeway.
I-10 runs through San Bernardino and Riverside counties. The corridor's safety record remains a concern. The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority and Caltrans District 8 have classified this section of I-10 as a nationally significant freight bottleneck, according to documents filed with the California Transportation Commission, prompting infrastructure projects meant to reduce truck queues and collision risk.
For now, the exact cause of Friday's crash, whether driver fatigue or mechanical failure was involved, and the current medical condition of the hospitalized victims all remain unknown. CHP's investigation is ongoing.
