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The southbound lanes on U.S. 101 in the Peninsula have reopened after being closed for more than eight hours following a wreck Tuesday afternoon involving an overturned fuel tanker.
The northbound lanes will remain closed until sometime Wednesday morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.
A van collided with a big-rig hauling two gasoline tankers near Maple Road at around 1:45 p.m., causing the rear tanker to overturn and spill an estimated 1,600 gallons of fuel onto the highway, the CHP said.
Both directions of the highway were closed between the Woodside Road and Whipple Avenue exits at about 2 p.m. Then, at 4 p.m., authorities extended the closure to a nine-mile stretch from state Highway 84 to state Highway 92.
The trailer has been removed from the roadway but crews are still working to clean up gasoline in and around the highway.
The closure wreaked havoc on the evening commute, causing gridlock in one of the busiest traffic areas in the Bay Area. One driver reported that the trip from San Francisco to San Mateo took over an hour and a half.
The cleanup process has involved many steps, some of them potentially dangerous, and has required fire and hazmat crews to be extra careful, said Redwood City fire officials.
Aside from dreadful traffic and the potential for gasoline to ignite, protection of marine life became a concern as cleanup crews scurried to stunt the fuel from reaching pipes that lead to San Francisco Bay. None of the fuel appears to have gone that far, according to officials.
Before hazmat crews could begin pumping out gas and water from drainage ditches along the highway, fire crews needed to upright the overturned tanker and haul it off the road. They could not upright the tanker until it was emptied of all remaining gasoline, Caltrans official Lauren Wonders said.
No major injuries were reported as a result of the accident, the CHP said.
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This accident was caused by Angelina Revuelta, an illegal Mexican immigrant, with no drivers license and no automobile insurance. It seems to me that this would be an ideal time to discuss the pros and cons of granting illegal aliens driver licenses. Instead, we can expect little to no coverage or reporting on this aspect of the accident that will cost the tax payers millions to clean and repair, as well as the time lost by the thousands of drivers stuck in the chaos she caused.
Without conceding any of your claims to the status of the driver in this particular incident, I advocate allowing undocumented aliens to have drivers licenses. The pros outweigh the cons.
The biggest argument against granting the driving privilege to undocumented people is that it will encourage them to come to the USA. They are here; they will stay here. There are other, better, incentives including: ability to earn more money than in their countries, access to health care, and schools. Giving them California driver licenses won’t have them massing at the boarder to invade our state.
Among the arguments in favor of giving them licenses: they qualify for insurance, they would have to complete a driver education course to qualify for a license. Should they be involved in a crime, the police have good information about them (photo, thumb print, address).
It used to be that we could impound a vehicle driven by an unlicensed driver for 30 days. Policies have changed and we rarely do that any longer. They don’t get to drive away, but we don’t take their car. Though a misdemeanor, the courts have grown tolerant; there are simply too many of these violations flooding traffic court.
Granting the driving privilege to undocumented residents promises to provide more benefit than harm.
I don’t believe you’re a cop, because a cop would know how to spell a word like “border.” You might think it’s a “boarder” as in we are being boarded like a captured ship, but many of the rest of us don’t. If Revuelta turns out to be an illegal immigrant, she should be criminally prosecuted. Her negligence in failing to adhere to the law caused massive damage to the most important highway in the Bay Area, several other accidents that resulted from the heavy traffic, and a lot of inconvenience to the general public.