How scary is winter driving? A melting snowbank and freezing conditions on Wisconsin on a freeway ramp could have cost a pickup truck driver his life.
A camera operated by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation captured the truck’s crash film, just after the driver, Richard Lee Oliver, lost control.
The dramatic footage also documented a miracle. The red pickup truck plunged 70 feet after plowing into the snowbank and tumbling over the barrier.
Pickup truck driver loses control
Two drivers came to the man’s aid following the wreck on west I-94 just east of Interstate 41 in the Zoo Interchange. The single-car accident victim was transported to a Milwaukee hospital by firefighters with non-life-threatening injuries.
A preliminary investigation reportedly revealed the pickup truck driver lost control while on a ramp from westbound I-94 to southbound I-41, ultimately falling into the westbound I-94 distress lane.
“There was just too much snow on the side of the road that once the tires got into like two feet of snow, there’s no controlling the vehicle of any kind,” Oliver said from his hospital in an interview on “Good Morning America.”
The crash video falling 70 feet to the road below as cars pass by. It appeared to land backward, on its wheels.
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Article Last Updated: February 18, 2021.
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A sports, travel and business journalist for more than 45 years, James has written the new car review column The Weekly Driver since 2004.
In addition to founding this site in 2004, James writes a Sunday automotive column for The San Jose Mercury and East Bay Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., and monthly auto review and wellness columns for Gulfshore Business, a magazine in Southwest Florida.
An author and contributor to many newspapers, magazines and online publications, co-hosted The Weekly Driver Podcast from 2017 to 2024.
