State Police: Drunken pickup driver flies off upper deck, lands on lower deck

By adamg on Mon, 02/23/2015 - 2:02pm

An East Boston man faces OUI charges after a crash in which he somehow managed to avoid plummeting to the ground early Sunday.

According to State Police, Vannak Sao, 33, was heading north on I-93 around 6:25 a.m. on Sunday when he:

Crashed through a light pole, a sign for the exit, and several lengths of chain link fence, launching off the upper deck of the expressway and [came] to rest on the lower deck, the southbound side of Route 93. The 2006 Toyota Tacoma was propelled forward and off the upper deck after striking a barrier structure known as an attenuator, which divides the main highway from the off ramp to Route 1.

Boston and Somerville firefighters managed to get him out of the remains of his truck and he was transported to Mass. General, State Police say. He will be summonsed to court on charges of OUI and negligent operation of a motor vehicle.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

Finally.

By Irmo
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 2:06pm

Finally.

I had to wonder if it would take a Boston based remake of The Blues Brothers for someone to use the launch ramp.

General Lee

By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 2:10pm

[img]https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:AN...

Man, I haven't heard the

By gotdatwmd
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 4:00pm

Man, I haven't heard the terms "upper deck" and "lower deck" applied to transportation in years.

WBZ

By Camberville
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 4:03pm

Traffic on the 3's uses "Lower Deck" pretty often.

I guess I just zone out when

By gotdatwmd
Tue, 02/24/2015 - 11:26am

I guess I just zone out when traffic comes on the radio.

RIP central arty

I still hear those terms used

By DTP
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 10:41pm

I still hear those terms used regularly for the double-decker stretch of 93 north of the Zakim.

How...

By Hyde_Parker
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 4:12pm

I'm still trying to imagine how this is even possible. Aren't the upper and lower decks in vertical alignment with each other?

Possibly an even better question: did the guy even realize what happened to him, or was he too drunk?

You can totally see how this

By ben
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 4:32pm

You can totally see how this might happen looking at google satellite view

Still completely nuts. And amazing more people were not hurt.

Lower Deck

By Jimbo
Mon, 02/23/2015 - 4:52pm

Sounds like this happened right at the off-ramp to Rt1/Tobin bridge. At the point the highway is still transitioning from side-by-side (over the Zakim Bridge) to upper/lower deck ( Soverville ) arrangements.

1) The person is lucky to have survived.

2) Thank God, no innocent victim on the Southbound lower deck had a pickup truck land on their roof!