Tractor-trailer takes wild ride through Delco neighborhood mowing down street signs, utility poles
'Truckzilla' mows down street signs, power lines, damages property in Delco
Police say photos show an 18-wheeler, now dubbed, ?Truckzilla,? on a rampage, mowing down street signs and power lines in a Prospect Park neighborhood Tuesday morning.
PROSPECT PARK, Pa. - A wild ride through a Delaware County neighborhood caused so much damage, police gave it a name. Police say photos show an 18-wheeler, now dubbed, "Truckzilla," on a rampage, mowing down street signs and power lines in a Prospect Park neighborhood Tuesday morning.
What we know:
"That stop sign gets replaced quite often," says longtime Prospect Park resident Ray Hagen who lost count how many times the stop sign on the intersection of 14th and Fletcher avenues has been run over by trucks.
It happened again this week when a tractor-trailer police have dubbed "Truckzilla" barreled through a residential part of town.
"Usually, we get large moving trucks or box trucks. And things like that - they can’t navigate that. It’s residential so you can only park on one side of the street," said Haagen.
Timeline:
It was his porch camera that caught the black tractor trailer Prospect Park Police are now trying to track down. They say the truck mowed over a stop sign, crushed some curbing, wrecked a portion of someone’s front lawn, tore down power lines and then kept going. Police are now looking for the driver.
"I feel that it was a truck driver that got turned around. That was they were trying to make his or her way out of a residential neighborhood," said Prospect Park Police Sgt. Henry O’Neill.
But "Truckzilla’s" path of destruction didn’t end there. Police believe the driver kept driving and tore down a PECO utility pole five blocks away near the corner of 9th and Pennsylvania avenues.
Utility lines still remain in Thomas Caton’s front yard Tuesday night. Thanks to that truck, he still has no cable or internet.
"This happened at nine yesterday morning and still Comcast is out. I’ve been through the ringer," said Caton.
Big picture view:
Residents believe the increased truck traffic in their neighborhoods may be caused by drivers trying to avoid the low clearance around the infamous Route 420 bridge. Police tell FOX 29 they tracked down the truck’s owner to Illinois. They not only want insurance money for the damage to borough property, but they also want to send a message to any truck drivers about driving big rigs in their town.
"We’ll stop traffic. We’ll move cars. We’ll move the world for you, so we don’t have to deal with situations like that and homeowners don’t have to deal with headaches," said Sgt. O’Neill.