Early Sunday morning traffic on eastbound I-696 near Dequindre Road got a rude wake-up call when a FedEx semi-truck plowed into the concrete median wall, sending chunks of debris flying across the westbound lanes. Dashcam footage of the crash quickly made its way onto Metro Detroit News’ Facebook page, and it did what dashcam footage always does: sparked a full comment-section investigation into what actually happened.
The good news first, because it matters most: no major injuries were reported. Given how violently that trailer appears to have made contact with the wall, that’s the kind of outcome you hope for every time. Roads were wet from overnight rain, which is the detail everyone latched onto immediately, and for good reason. Wet pavement plus a fully loaded semi is never a great combination.
What’s interesting here isn’t just the crash itself, it’s how split the audience got trying to diagnose it from a few seconds of video. That’s the beauty and the curse of dashcam clips. Everyone becomes an accident reconstructionist in the comments, armed with nothing but a shaky video and strong opinions.
So let’s walk through the two leading theories, because both have merit, and honestly, both remind us why driving a semi in the rain is a job I would not want.
Did He Just Hydroplane?
The simplest explanation floating around is also the most common one for wet-weather semi crashes: hydroplaning. Big rigs carry a lot of weight, but that weight is spread across a lot of rubber, and at highway speed on a soaked road, it doesn’t take much for a tire to lose contact with the pavement.
If the truck was running speeds that didn’t quite account for the rain, a sudden loss of traction could easily explain that jerking motion into the wall. Nothing dramatic has to happen mechanically. Sometimes physics just wins.
Or Did Fatigue Play a Role?
The other theory making the rounds is driver fatigue, and this one got a little more personal in the comments. One commenter pointed out that back-to-back long hauls, sometimes called doubles, are no joke on the body. Another pushed back, noting their own husband regularly runs consecutive long trips without incident.
Both things can be true. Trucking fatigue is a real and well-documented issue industry-wide, but it’s also not fair to assume every early-morning crash means someone dozed off. We simply don’t know, and neither does anyone else scrolling Facebook at 7 a.m.
The Blown Tire Theory Has Some Fans Too
My personal favorite take came from someone with actual trucking instincts, who suggested the sudden jerk to the right looked more like a blown front steer tire. Once that happens, you’re basically a passenger on wet pavement, hanging on for dear life. If that’s what happened, the driver arguably did a solid job keeping the rig from tipping or taking anyone else out with it.
Added another truck driver supporter: “What about the car that cut him off in the right-hand lane, you could see the brake lights right before he swerved?”
Whatever the cause, this one’s a good reminder that wet roads and big rigs deserve extra respect, no matter how many miles you’ve logged.