@Beth Gallagher "I have one fist of iron, The other of steel..... If the right one don't get you, The left one will"....... Tennessee Ernie Ford
I have only seen those gravel pits for runaway trucks in mountain states. Their brakes get hot on mountain passes and they are careening down the mountain without brakes.
Yes, this can happen a lot where there are long, steep hills or mountain passes. It is not that the trucks didn’t have breaks originally, but when coming down a long hill, and needing to use their brakes a lot, then there is a much higher chance of the brake system giving out. Even the little town of Bonners Ferry (5,000) , which has a steep hill coming into town, had to put up a truck ramp. The trucks would lose their brakes coming into town, cross the Kootenai river bridge, and then crash into the first buildings on the other side. Some steep grades, like the Lewiston Hill (Idaho) or coming over the pass near Pendleton, Oregon, have several off ramps with deep sand for trucks to go off should they lose their brakes. This has saved a lot of accidents and people’s lives.
I saw this. In a river just outside of Valdez, Alaska, in 1962, on a summer vacation trip. I was a teenager, and it made me sad. The salmon get to a point where their bodies become deformed and their days are numbered. They all die. But life goes on. {sniff}