When life hands you lemons...
A tractor-trailer full of the citrus fruit crashed and overturned on a New Jersey highway Wednesday morning, snarling traffic enough to put a sour note on the evening commute for those in the area, as the produce was left strewn about the roadway.
The truck overturned just before 10 a.m. on Route 17 north by Mountainside Avenue in Mahwah, according to town police. Officers who arrived at the scene saw that the truck's trailer was in the southbound side and had struck another vehicle. The cab of the truck was blocking the northbound lanes entirely, Mahwah police said.
The driver told police that he felt the truck's load shift as he was driving and tried to correct it, but doing so caused the trailer to dislodge and land in the southbound lanes. That sent scores of citrus everywhere, much of it left lying on the road for hours.
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The crash put quite the squeeze on traffic, as Route 17 north was closed entirely as the investigation was underway. It was expected that the highway would remain closed for several hours; eventually all lanes reopened before 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The driver of the truck and of the vehicle the trailer struck were both taken to the hospital with injuries, but were expected to survive.
The state's Department of Transportation was at the scene to look at damage to an overhead sign.
