According to a Tennessee Highway Patrol report, at least five accidents on the Rockwood Mountain stretch of Interstate 40 Thursday involved tractor trailers. The report added the rain played a role in all of the crashes, a total of six instances.
The six-mile stretch of roadway is on the edge of the Cumberland Plateau, and is known for crashes in the past.
"Kind of dangerous sometimes... hard to tell if you're going to wreck or not," driver Dave Schlabach described that portion of the interstate.
The former truck driver said he tries to not use that stretch of interstate, and prefers local roads as alternatives.
"(Drivers) turn too early and too sharply, too quick and a lot of trucks flip on the sides," Schlabach added.
Approximately 29,000 vehicles drive between I-40 milemarkers 340 and 346 daily. About a third of them are tractor trailers, according to the state. The trucks are prone to accidents there.
"The visibility gets low, the roads get slick, you have overspray," TDOT Region 1's Steve Borden said, describing the excess water that trucks' tires spray on other vehicles -- a cause of some of those crashes in the past.
Since 2005, TDOT has added more warnings, installed cameras, and paved the roadways to prevent the spraying of water. That has helped decrease the number of wrecks on that stretch of roadway, Borden said.
"A large percentage of crashes were due to the overspray on trucks and by putting the 'open-grated friction course.' It cuts down the overspray on the trucks," Borden said.
However, ongoing slide stabilization work has closed part of the shoulder on the eastbound side.
Crews said drivers need to pay attention of lowered speed limits to prevent crashes like the ones on Thursday.
"We're always reevaluating. Obviously, each time you see anything like (those crashes) occur, we need to see if there's anything new or different we need to place," Borden said.
Some drivers remain leery of the stretch of roadway.
"People think they're falling off, they hit a bump, they overreact, oversteer, and I think that's a lot of the problem," Schlabach said.