Quimby, IA — A man from Quimby was killed a few miles east of the small town this past Monday (September 22, 2014) after a fatal accident with a dump truck. Police said that Fred Lukins was killed and his brother, Loren Lukins, was injured after their vehicle was hit by a dump truck.
This happened at the intersection of Highway 31/610th Street and Highway 59. The details are still being investigated, but it looks like the Lukins were in a pickup truck headed west on Highway 31 when they were hit by the dump truck, which was driving along U.S. Highway 59.
The accident killed Fred Lukins and sent Loren Lukins to a hospital with moderate injuries along with the dump truck driver.
Later, police identified the dump truck driver as Timothy Rardin and actually charged him with “driving the on the wrong side of a two lane highway.” It’s not clear if this played a role in the accident, but as of Wednesday, police said they had finished their investigation.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary:
I won’t pretend to have all the answers here because, the truth is, the news reports didn’t really provide a lot of details. However, I noticed that the dump truck driver was charged with driving on the wrong side of the road. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like something fairly major – perhaps it contributed to the accident? Now, if the victim had rolled through a stop sign or something like that, then part of the accident is understandably his fault. But if the dump truck was driving in the wrong lanes, who’s to say that this couldn’t have been prevented had the dump truck driver been paying a little more attention? Clearly, there are more questions than answers here and I’m not entirely satisfied with the police’s work so far.
— Grossman Law Offices
