`Connecticut cement truck steering failure`

Cement truck driver lost steering on a Connecticut bridge after muriatic acid (carried on the truck for cement cleanup) leaked through seals and corroded the steering gears. Truck and driver fell ~100 feet. Used as a tangent inside the cement truck case to motivate why cement trucks carry acid and water.

I had a situation once where a cement truck was coming through Connecticut, going over a bridge. All of a sudden the guy lost his steering and drove the cement truck off the bridge and killed himself. The truck wasn't in very good shape either — take 60 tons off a bridge and drop it a hundred feet, it's not good for the truck. The question was, why did he just drive off the bridge? It turns out, in the steering gear, there were some gears that had corroded, because he had been using the muriatic acid to clean off the underside of his truck and he had been dissolving away his gears. Some of the stuff was leaking through the seals, and that's why he lost his steering. On cement trucks you have to clean things off. They try to use water — certainly when cement is wet and hasn't hardened you can use water; it's only when it's hardened you have to use the muriatic acid.