Columbia, SC, 2/8/06. A seven-vehicle pileup on I-26 Wednesday morning killed a husband and wife, sent 12 people to hospitals and shut down the eastbound lanes for more than five hours, authorities said. Steven Robert Gerth and Nancy Dianne Gerth, both 65, of St. Cloud, Minn., died at the scene. Their Toyota Camry was crushed…
Continue reading ›2/3/06.Two Florida men and a Georgia truck driver died in a chain-reaction crash that has shut down southbound lanes of Interstate 95 near Hardeeville, SC, near the Georgia state line. The crash about 1:25 Friday morning happened as traffic was stopped because of another incident farther up I-95. A tractor trailer hauling steel rear-ended a…
Continue reading ›A truck driver who plowed into a stopped car on 1/25/06 and killed seven children from one family had been awake for 34 hours, except for a short nap. This dramatically emphasizes the widespread problem of truck driver fatigue that we see time and time again. Seven children from one family in Lake Butler, Florida…
Continue reading ›Lawrenceville, GA, 1/25/06. A tanker truck carrying liquid latex overturned on I-85 South near Ga. Highway 20 shortly after 4 AM Tuesday morning, causing the closing of all southbound lanes for 12 hours. While no injuries were reporting, it was a traffic nightmare for many thousands of commuters as Georgia DOT workers struggled to clean…
Continue reading ›Today’s Louisville Courier-Journal carries the poignant story of two truck drivers. One was a Good Samaritan who stopped to help a motorist in distress. The other, an apparently drowsy trucker whose hours of service could not be documented because no logs were found, drifted off the highway as if he were exiting a freeway. The…
Continue reading ›Montpelier, Ohio, 12/8/05 A tractor trailer loaded with plywood collided with the rear of a slower moving older private bus on the Ohio Turnpike Tuesday night. Two of the fifteen passengers on the bus suffered head injuries. According to the Toledo Blade, a line of commercial vehicles, traveling at 65 mph, moved to the left…
Continue reading ›NEW CASTLE, PA, 11/30/05. The driver of a truck carrying liquefied oxygen apparently fell asleep at the wheel at 1:40 AM. The tank truck hit an embankment and overpass, starting a fiery crash that killed him. See article. The news report does not include anything about the driver’s hours of service, fatigue, or hazardous materials…
Continue reading ›Elgin, IL, 11/30/05. A truck carrying 42,000 pounds of gravel sped through a red light, stuck a minivan and 8 other vehicles, and killed the driver of the minivan. The driver of the gravel truck was to be tested for drugs and alcohol. See news story. In many states trucks carrying road construction materials, timber,…
Continue reading ›Santa Maria, CA, 11/27/05. A Greyhound bus driver apparently fell asleep and ran off a road, killing two passengers, one of whom was seven months pregnant. Forty-one other passengers were injured. A witness said the bus suddenly drifted over the fog line without signaling or braking and plunged over an embankment. See CNN story. The…
Continue reading ›Gorman, CA, 11/25/05. On the I-5 freeway in the Los Angeles area, a tractor trailer struck the rear of a stalled pickup truck, overturning the smaller vehicle and killing a man and teenage boy inside. The tractor trailer driver left the scene with a ruptured fuel tank, took the next exit, and proceeded until the…
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