A tanker truck crash on U.S. Highway 101 in Morgan Hill that caused a major traffic backup on Monday appears to have happened when the driver made an unsafe turning movement, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said Tuesday.
The truck, which was carrying molten wax, overturned at the Cochrane Road exit at about 2:45 p.m. Monday, CHP Officer Peter Van Eckhardt said. It took crews more than 12 hours to clean it up.
Crews siphoned the molten wax from the crashed tanker to another truck and then uprighted and removed the tanker from the highway overnight, CHP Officer Jaime Rios said, but that took hours and hours.
All lanes weren't reopened until the following mornings commute.
The crash damaged an asphalt curb and callbox. You could see the grooves in the roadway from the helicopter footage from above.
"Traffic was backed up pretty badly," Rios said.
The CHP does not believe alcohol or drugs played a role in the crash.
