Oily substance on road may have contributed to death

Monday, Sept. 28, 1998 | 3:38 a.m.

The sealant was laid down last week. City public works crews had been working on the road less than 24 hours before the truck carrying 9,200 gallons of gasoline jackknifed at the busy intersection Saturday afternoon.

"There was a layer of oil on the road," Reno street maintenance manager Dennis Krause said.

"We're running tests to determine" if it contributed to Saturday's fatal accident, he told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

The intersection where the truck exploded on the southeast side of town wasn't reopened to traffic until Monday morning.

The driver, Dave Cermak, 55, Sparks, was killed when he swerved to avoid hitting two cars stopped at the intersection to help in another accident.

Four nearby vehicles were destroyed by flames but all eight occupants escaped serious injury.

The same kind of oily buildup has been blamed as a contributing factor in other accidents in the region in recent years.

State transportation officials ripped up a $50,000 layer of sealant last summer on U.S. Highway 50 near Lake Tahoe's Spooner Summit after three accidents occurred there over a three-week stretch.

Work crews removed $600,000 worth of resurfaced road in Minden for the same reason in May 1997.

Oil residue mixed with rain was blamed for a series of crashes that killed one and injured several others in 1993 on Interstate 80 between Reno and Verdi.

Several witnesses said Saturday that it appeared Cermak may have rolled the truck over deliberately to save the others.

"I really think he saved our lives by what he did," Cathleen Van Arkel of Reno said.

Cermak's partner, Paul Krebs, said Cermak had been driving for 30 years and recently received a driving safety award.

"He took evasive action to protect them. That's the kind of person Dave was," Krebs said Monday.