Fresno highway closed overnight after big rig rolls. Road has a history of bad crashes
An overturned big rig blocked Highway 41 south of Fresno for about 12 hours from Sunday into Monday on a troubled roadway, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The big rig was headed north on Highway 41 near Mt. Whitney Avenue about 6:30 p.m. when it struck the center divider and ended up on its side, according to officer Pieter Peruch.
That stretch of highway goes down from four lanes to two.
The truck part of the big rig caught fire, but not the trailer, the CHP said. The railing, which the CHP calls a K rail, was pushed into the opposite lane.
“Everything had to be shut down to allow Caltrans to move that K rail back into place,” Peruch said.
The roadway was clear and reopened about 5 a.m. Monday, he said. No injuries were reported.
That section of Highway 41 has been the site of many collisions, including fatal crashes, that has troubled people living in the area. It is part of state plans to get widened.
People in southern Fresno County have been advocating for the widening in the Widen Highway 41 Movement, which is active on Facebook.
The latest push came after fatal crashes at the end of 2020, officials said, and the families of those who died have been involved in the effort.
Forty-year-old Kenneth Atkins was killed in a head-on crash on his way to Naval Air Station Lemoore in September 2020.
Joel Carillo, 23, was killed in a crash Nov. 10 south of Harlan Avenue near Laton when a wrong-way driver collided with him head-on.
The widening project for the two-lane stretch of 41 from Elkhorn to Excelsior avenues, south of Caruthers, has been added to the state Department of Transportation’s Draft 2020 Interregional Transportation Improvement Program.
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 8:51 AM.
