Nesquehoning police responded to a tractor-trailer crash in the borough last Friday after the rig driver lost his brakes while coming down the Broad Mountain and used the emergency truck pull-off.

At 12:20 a.m. Friday, Nesquehoning police officer Richard Neikam was dispatched to the emergency runaway truck ramp for a rig on the ramp.When he got there, he observed the truck, which was hauling pork products to Philadelphia, about halfway up the ramp and the driver, identified as Anton Hough, 28, of Philadelphia, was still sitting in the rig.At the time, the runaway ramp was covered with approximately 1 to 3 feet of snow from the recent blizzard.Neikam asked Hough if he was injured and he responded he was not.Neikam then asked Hough if he stopped at the posted signs to gear down since the rig was over the 21,000-pound limit.He said that he did but approximately halfway down Route 93 his brakes started to fail and he was unable to stop the vehicle so he used the runaway ramp.As the two spoke, Neikam noticed that Hough had struck a wooden pole to the entrance of the ramp that pointed to the runaway ramp.The rig had also run over multiple reflectors on the right of the ramp.Weatherly Police assisted at the scene until PennDOT was able to clear the snow so the rig could be towed out by Zenier’s Towing.Hough was cited for the crash and for having an expired registration sticker on the trailer.The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is planning a detour to help prevent further crashes.The Route 93 truck detour will restrict trucks with 102-inch trailers, the standard size for tractor-trailers, on Route 93 between routes 424 in Hazle Township and 209 in Nesquehoning.The Broad Mountain has a 9 percent grade as it winds 2¼ miles before meeting a T-intersection with Route 209.