Another vintage Peterbilt photo sent in by Dman. It presumably happened in Petaluma, CA. Good thing it wasn’t a gasoline tanker.
Vintage Photo: Peterbilt Milk Tanker Creams Hall-Scott Powered Van Pelt-IHC Fire Truck – Call The Fire Department! Um, Never Mind
– Posted on December 6, 2020
Here you go, Paul (and everyone)—14 June 1957. Quite a story!
Another photo:
Thanks for tracking down the news articles George. The Sonoma County historical photo archive site lists the date as “1965?” but 1957 seems more appropriate.
You’re welcome, dman—fun to see this today (fire chief driver was hospitalized for a couple days, BTW). I left the date on the dramatic photo–front page story, after all, so feel free to share with the Sonoma folks. The cars on the street would also help date the photo, anyway, I suppose.
Looks like the boy just got chewed out by the firemen for watching the disaster.
Courtesy Google Street View, here is the scene today, unrecognizable. The original photographer was standing with the railroad tracks, which are still there and with regular scheduled passenger service, behind him…just as is the Google camera.
The Tivoli Hotel on the right side of the photo was roughly where the Taco Bell is now. But all the buildings were razed when East Washington St. was widened to four lanes. Hopper St., the cross street in the photo, was renamed Lakeville St.
Interesting how the news report’s slant tries to gently pin this on the milk truck while absolving the firetruck driver of his responsibility. LoL
So speculating that if the milk truck driver had heard or seen (probably did) the speeding firetruck barrelling in for a T-bone, what was he supposed to do to avoid this crash ?
I’m obviously sorry that people got hurt but it can’t help make me laugh when the paper specifically points out that Captain Jamieson got hit on the nose from a flying fire ladder.
In today’s generic world “the captain received facial injuries” would be about as specific as it got.