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Overturned McDonald’s Big Rig Leaves a French Fry McMess in Irvine

The truck was completely emptied of its potato contents

McDonald’s
Going, going, gone
Flickr/rusty_clark
Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor at Eater LA and the author of Los Angeles Street Food: A History From Tamaleros to Taco Trucks. He covers restaurants in every form, from breaking news to the culture, people, and history that surrounds LA's dining landscape.

A weekend tractor trailer crash on the 5 Freeway in Orange County left boxes and boxes of frozen McDonald’s french fries splayed across the road. The accident occurred during the early morning hours on Sunday, meaning no other cars were affected and the Irvine spill was quickly contained, though there may have been a momentary depletion of area McDonald’s french fry reserves.

The overturned big rig was captured by KCAL 9, who showed off the busted spuds in all their discarded glory. Thankfully the driver was not injured in the incident, which left the rig on its side, but the entire trailer filled with fries was considered a loss. It’s unclear just how many orders of fries were lost, but as the world’s largest purchaser of potatoes (and many other things) it’s unlikely the McDonald’s Corporation even registered the wreck on their bottom line.

In fact, this isn’t even the first time a McDonald’s rig has crashed in Southern California in recent years. Back in 2015 a post-rain crash on the 210 spilled a trailer full of milk all over the freeway, while locally individual drivers have been menaces to one-off restaurants (and their front doors and patios) for years.