highway 401 ontario

Diaper truck rollover shuts down Highway 401 as Ontario drivers deal with winter chaos

It's been a rough week for commuters in Ontario, to say the least, starting bright and early on Monday morning with a ferocious blizzard that ended up trapping motorists in their cars on local roads and highways — some of them for more than 10 hours in total.

But it wasn't the snow that brought Highway 401 to a complete standstill near Maitland, Ontario, overnight on Tuesday. At least not entirely. 

The OPP East Region reports that a tractor trailer carrying some 30,000 lbs of diapers — yes, diapers — rolled over the busy highway roughly four hours east of Toronto earlier this week, causing minor injuries to the vehicle's driver.

Emergency responders and tow crews were somehow able to flip the trailer back over into the right position, but the highway had to close down for several hours in the meantime, adding further frustration to an already frustrating day for 401 users.

It's not clear exactly how many diapers were in the haul, but one would assume that there were a lot, given the load's stated weight.

Police used the opportunity to remind all drivers that they should exercise caution while driving under inclement weather conditions ("#SeeSnowGoSlow" is how the OPP put it on Twitter.)

"Hope the driver will get pampered this weekend," replied one clever dude to the OPP's original diaper truck tweet.

"Well, the roads were pretty sh*tty," joked another. "Glad nobody was seriously hurt."

Lead photo by

OPP East Region


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