Negoa, IL – Five people were injured in a three-vehicle wreck along Interstate 57 in Neoga on Friday, September 4th, 2015. The accident happened around 4:00 am.
According to the police report, 56-year-old Kenneth Moore was driving a 2015 Freightliner 18-wheeler northbound on Interstate 57 two miles south of the Neoga exit when the accident happened. The tractor-trailer went off the road, for unknown reasons, coming to rest in the median, the trailer remaining in the northbound lane.
22-year-old Ifang Wang was driving a 2010 Toyota Prius northbound but did not see the trailer and struck it head-on. 26-year-old Patrick Murnin sideswiped both the commercial truck and the Prius in an effort to avoid the vehicles.
Moore and passenger, 30-year-old Terenio Gibson, were taken to the hospital. Murnin was also taken to the hospital for treatment. Wang and passenger, 33-year-old Job Wong, were also taken to the hospital.
Their conditions are not available at this time.
Moore was ticketed for improper lane usage.
At this time, we don’t have more information about what causes this accident .It’s not clear if there was a mechanical malfunction or some other reason the 18-wheeler pulled off the road.
Area Near the Accident
Commentary:
There’s a couple things I noticed about this accident that bother me. Granted, we’re missing a lot of the specifics that would give a better picture of what happened here. But from what I see, the 18-wheeler blocked the northbound side of the interstate leaving little option but for the following vehicles to crash into the trailer. It looks like the accident happened in the early morning, and on a road like this, visibility is going to be an issue.
We’re not given a clear idea as to whether the trailer is completely obstructing traffic, or marginally hanging out into the lane. There’s a big difference between a vehicle being expected to swerve around an obstacle and being expected to come to a full stop or depart from the roadway in order to avoid a collision. Unfortunately, we just don’t have enough information to know which of these scenarios is more likely.
I’m not trying to pick on the truck driver here. Maybe there was plenty of room to go around his trailer and the other vehicles were following too closely or not paying attention. I’m just having to guess here.
Also, we’re not given an idea of why the truck pulled off the roadway. It’s possible that there was a kind of mechanical malfunction and the driver did his best to get off the road. If that’s the case, we’re looking at a different kind of situation. However, we don’t have that information right now. So I hope the truth comes out in investigation so that people will know what really happened. This accident could’ve been much worse, but from where I’m sitting, it likely could’ve been avoided too.
— Grossman Law Offices
