Richmond, UT — There was a major accident between a white car, a cement truck, and a van along U.S. 91 last Saturday, August 1, 2015. Steven Bassett, 50, of Idaho was injured and taken to a hospital afterwards.
According to the police, Bassett was riding in his white car along 100 South last Saturday as he was being towed by a van, which was being driven by a woman named Debra Leishman.
When they came to the intersection with U.S. 91, Leishman saw a large white concrete truck that was headed north on the highway. Leishman later told the police that she pulled out in front of the cement truck to make a left turn only because she thought the cement truck was going to turn onto 100 South — the street her van and the car she was towing were on.
The cement truck didn’t turn, however, and plowed in the side of the van and Bassett’s car. The accident did major damage to Bassett’s car and he was taken to a hospital for his injuries — which were not believed to be serious. The truck driver was later identified as Kyle Jordan, 48, and he wasn’t harmed. Leishman wasn’t hurt either.
Map of the Accident
View from the Road
Commentary:
Edit: I recently looked up this cement truck driver’s records, just to be thorough. If this is the same person, then it looks like he has a few things on his arrest record that are traffic-related. I won’t get into any specifics here, but this may be cause to take a closer look at what really happened. Again, that’s only if this information matches the actual truck driver, I suppose it’s possible that there’s another man with the same name, hometown, age, etc that I might’ve gotten mixed up.
A couple of the news reports I’ve read here implied that the woman thought the cement truck was going to turn right. Why is that? Was it signaling? Did the driver wave at her or otherwise motion that the path was clear? Perhaps this is all a big misunderstanding, but bear with me for a moment.
If someone signals that they’re turning, but then decides not to at the last minute, that could be very well be construed as negligent driving — especially in a big commercial cement truck. Those guys can’t exactly stop on a dime, so they better be careful how they drive. The point I’m trying to make here is that I’ve seen truckers do all kinds of crazy things on the road, including give wrong signals or no signals at all.
If this woman had legitimate reason to believe that the cement truck was going to give her safe passage or turn, then part of this accident may be the fault of the trucker’s. Again, I might have all these details wrong, but I thought it was a little strange that the news included it in their reports, so I decided to write about it.
— Grossman Law Offices
