Big-rig drivers say they dread the tunnel. Some call it the worst in the state. The traffic lanes curve left toward Los Angeles and then, abruptly, the drivers find themselves in the tunnel, blinded in the dark.
"I've been driving 23 years, and I hold my breath every time," said truck driver Fausto Evangelista, 42, as he weighed his big rig at a Commerce traffic stop Saturday night.
"You don't see what's ahead until you get in the tunnel," said another trucker, Luis Ceja, 49, of Norwalk, who estimates he has been through the I-5 tunnel more than 100 times.
"It's like you're going blind," Ceja said. "The tunnel's so dark -- you only have a second to react."
Veteran truck drivers say the treacherous 550-foot-long tunnel near Santa Clarita mixes three of the problems they dread most -- darkness, blind spots and curves. While authorities say they do not yet know what caused the Friday night accident, big-rig drivers said they were not surprised that the collisions occurred there.
Trucks are much harder to drive than cars, making such hazards even tougher to navigate.
"Obviously they're bigger. When they crash, they do a lot more damage, they've got a lot more weight behind them," said Jason Hurd, an inspector with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
The sheer height and weight of container trucks make them more likely to tip on curving freeway entrance and exit ramps, especially those built in the 1950s and 1960s. It also takes much longer to stop a truck than a passenger car.
Veteran truck drivers said Saturday that the tunnel near Santa Clarita is notorious among those who frequent the I-5 corridor.
The southbound I-5 truck tunnel can be treacherous in the rain, said Evangelista, who drives for Rapid Transfer Express and was headed for San Diego on Saturday night.
According to Bill Hoffer, a spokesman for the National Weather Service, a slight rain began falling in the Santa Clarita area Friday afternoon.
"When it rains, the water won't evaporate," Evangelista said. "It's a lake of oil and water, and it's real easy to slide on it," he said, shouting over the roar of his big rig. This is the worst time of year for those conditions, he said, before the rainy season begins. "When you're going fast, right after it rains, you're not giving yourself a chance."
He agreed that the curve on the tunnel approach is treacherous: "The curve plays a big role, too. If you're going too fast, you're dead meat."
