A driver in a box truck on Wyoming Highway 22 traveling through Teton Pass on Thursday found the Wyoming Department of Transportation’s “catchnet” vehicle arrestor system a life-saver.
WYDOT spokesperson Stephanie Harsha said the box truck went through four nets before it was stopped.
“The box truck was having brake issues and … the driver was treated for minor injuries,” she said.
Harsha said the system sits just past the 7-mile mark on the highway and is one of two deployed in the state.
The Teton Pass arrestor system was installed 12 years ago and has a series of seven nets that are designed to slow and stop runaway vehicles with minimal damage and injury.
The other one is on U.S. Highway 16 outside of Buffalo just past mile marker 85 and has eight nets, and was installed eight years ago.
Referred to as the catchnet system, the design requires less distance than a typical runaway truck ramp and works similar to the way a jet plane is caught on an aircraft carrier as it lands.
Harsha said the ramp consists of two concrete barriers on either side and a series of nets that absorb the energy of the runaway vehicle.
“When the vehicle enters that area, those cables and the tape they absorb the speed and energy of the (vehicle) as they expand,” she said.
The nets are made of aircraft cable and can have one or two energy absorbers connected on each side. The absorbers used a patented metal bender principle for absorbing energy.
Each absorber has a metal tape and a series of offset pins that act to slow the vehicle down as the tape is pulled through the pins. The system is designed it stop a 4,500-pound vehicle impacting a 30-foot net at 62 mph, and stop it at 83 feet.
A box truck lost its brakes on Thursday and was saved by the “catchnet” vehicle arrestor system installed on Teton Pass, one of two in the state. (Courtesy WYDOT) 
Texas trucker Jose Salazar said he has not seen the arrestor system for stopping runaway trucks, but said those types of devices save lives. (Greg Johnson, Cowboy State Daily) 
The Hat 6 Travel Center in Casper had several truck drivers pausing for fuel or a break at lunchtime Friday. Several said they were just starting trucking and had not seen runaway ramps or the vehicle arrestor systems. (Dale Killingbeck, Cowboy State Daily) 
The "catchnet" vehicle arrestor system on Teton Pass is one of two in Wyoming. It uses a series of nets to slow and stop runaway trucks and cars. It's been tested successfully with a fully-loaded dump truck hitting the nets at 60 mph. (Courtesy WYDOT via YouTube) 
The "catchnet" vehicle arrestor system on Teton Pass is one of two in Wyoming. It uses a series of nets to slow and stop runaway trucks and cars. It's been tested successfully with a fully-loaded dump truck hitting the nets at 60 mph. (Courtesy WYDOT via YouTube) 
The "catchnet" vehicle arrestor system on Teton Pass is one of two in Wyoming. It uses a series of nets to slow and stop runaway trucks and cars. It's been tested successfully with a fully-loaded dump truck hitting the nets at 60 mph. (Courtesy WYDOT via YouTube) 
The "catchnet" vehicle arrestor system on Teton Pass is one of two in Wyoming. It uses a series of nets to slow and stop runaway trucks and cars. It's been tested successfully with a fully-loaded dump truck hitting the nets at 60 mph. (Courtesy WYDOT via YouTube)
Designed To Stop Cars And Trucks
Harsha said the vehicle arrester system can accommodate anything from a passenger vehicle to an overweight commercial vehicle.
The state has long had runaway truck ramps on roads with steep grades around the state, Harsha said. The issue with the long ramps, especially in Teton Pass, is that the ramp has to be on the uphill side of the roadway.
“Those heading eastbound would have to cross into oncoming traffic in order to utilize the runaway truck ramp on the other side of the road,” she said. “And that puts oncoming cars in danger.
“That was why this arrestor system was built, because you can build them on either side of the road, so they don’t have to cross oncoming traffic.”
At Hat Six Travel Center in Casper on Friday, trucker Jose Salazar out of Cypress, Texas, said he had not seen the arrestor ramps, but in general runaway ramps are crucial for big rig operators.
“It’s your last option,” he said. “If not, you are going to die.”
Salazar said in his 25 years of trucking he has never lost his brakes but has “smoked them, and it’s not a good thing.”
Salazar said has never made a run through Teton Pass and typically tries to avoid highways with steep grades, if possible.
He makes regular runs between Greybull and Buffalo and will not take Highway 14 if at all possible, even though it has some runaway ramps.He would rather drive 100 miles or more out of the way than have to put this truck and himself on a steep grade.
Salazar said he remembers a wreck in Colorado on Interstate 70 involving a young trucker with a couple of years’ experience whose brakes failed.
“I don’t take I-70 at all going to Denver or other places,” he said. “It’s better to go around 100 or 200 miles. But those ramps are important.”
A WYDOT video shows a test of the Teton Pass system using a fully loaded plow truck at 60 mph. The driver says in the video that the impact with the nets or stopping “wasn’t jarring at all.”
“I was surprised and how smooth the stop was,” he said.
Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
