The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said safety measures are in place to present tractor-trailer crashes on Route 93 and the runaway truck ramp.

Motorists who travel Route 93 frequently notice the two-lane highway leading to the Broad Mountain is lined with dozens of signs warning truck drivers of the upcoming steep hill and the designated pull off.Sean Brown, safety press officer for PennDOT, said this is a common practice.Hills and the Broad Mountain are "signed and marked in a similar way," he said. "It is the driver's responsibility to not drive distracted and to pay attention to road signs."But if a driver fails to heed the warnings, a runaway truck ramp is also available.The ramp, which has been the site of numerous rig crashes for the last few decades, was redesigned by PennDOT in 2007 as an incline ramp that would allow rig drivers to stop safely."The ramp was redesigned to let trucks sink into it and slowly come to a stop," Brown said.The specialty stone design has been the source of much contention for some area residents who feel the type of stone used fails to allow for sinking.Brown said the type of stone selected has been "used for truck ramps to facilitate to gradual sinking of the vehicle into the ramp," adding that PennDOT has "not changed it recently.""We have had to do some repair work to drainage to the ramp, which did not affect the functionality," Brown continued. "After the work we filled in the ramp with the exact same stone."The ramp's stone is also regraded by PennDOT's Carbon County maintenance department following each use.So why did the ramp fail the rig that tried to use it earlier this month?Brown said he was not quite sure without PennDOT investigating the scene."I cannot say what factors contributed to this truck going beyond the end of the ramp in this particular case," he said. "Whether it was driver behavior, the truck itself or some other factor. But what I can say is the ramp has been used successfully several times by drivers since the redesign."