Fully-Loaded Car Carrier Overturns on Old Kings Road, 3 People Involved, None Hurt

Three people can consider themselves very lucky this morning–and one of them may soon face charges–after an auto transport carrying seven sedans overturned and crashed on Old Kings Road at Graham Swamp, causing an oncoming driver to avoid the collision and crash her own Corvette into a guard rail.

Somehow, no one was visibly hurt aside from the driver suffering a laceration around the eye, for which he declined medical attention. The crash, at 10:30 this morning, closed Old Kings Road in both directions for upwards of two hours, from Oak Trails Bloulevard to the entrance to Graham Swamp, where traffic was required to loop around the parking lot and head back south.

The crash involved truck driver Jorge Luis Ramos Mora, 25, of St. Cloud, his passenger–whose name was not available–and Palm Coast resident Lydia Kefalidou, the Palm Coast internist physician who works at Island Doctors. Kefalidou was at the wheel of a 2009 Corvette and narrowly missed getting crushed by the oncoming trailer. Ramos Mora’s truck is registered to J.R. Auto Transport of Orlando.

As Kefalidou described it, she was driving north on Old Kings when, a short distance after passing Graham Swamp and nearing Oak Trails, she saw the tractor trailer speeding south. “It looked to me like it was going very fast,” she said, and that it was “out of control.” When she saw the truck as it was heading south toward her its right wheels had left the road, and she instantly had to make what proved to be a life-saving decision.

“I saw the guy coming fast, his wheels were off the road, he was leaning and the back of the truck was coming over to me so I went off the road because I thought he was going to kill me,” Kefalidou said, describing the maneuver that forced her onto the east shoulder, into the grass, as the Corvette’s front struck a guard rail.

All seven Toyotas the truck was carrying were damaged, those on the upper deck more heavily so. One of the cars was thrown entirely off the truck. The truck was also carrying a motorcycle, which appeared to have escaped damage.

A Florida Highway Patrol investigator at the scene said the preliminary investigation shows Ramos Mora losing control of the truck as he failed to negotiate the turn just past Oak Trails, striking a guardrail, over-correcting, reentering the road and going “basically sideways” as the trailer swept across both lanes of Old Kings Road and overturned. The cab of the truck was on its back in a ditch when it was over.

Ramos Mora and his passenger leaned against a guard rail after the crash or walked around the scene, speaking on a cell phone. He declined to speak with a reporter.

The truck appeared to have no reason to be on Old Kings Road, however. Truckers in the past have used Old Kings Road to avoid going through the Department of Transportation’s weigh station on I-95, at around the same level. The problem became serious enough that the Department of Transportation installed surveillance cameras at entrances and exits to the Interstate, on Palm Coast Parkway and State Road 100, to monitor potential evaders.

Asked whether the driver was speeding or was seeking to avoid the weigh station, the FHP investigator said that’s yet to be determined, but he said charges are pending.

The Palm Coast Fire Department, Flagler County Fire Rescue, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Department and the Palm Coast Fire Police responded to the scene, with the Palm Coast Fire Department standing by at least two hours to ensure that there were no additional issues.