Lamar County, Texas — A local company out of Paris had two workers get into an accident this past Tuesday afternoon, September 15, 2015 out on Farm-to-Market Road 196. Police said that Shannon Kendricks, 46, and Ronnie Earl Walters, 33, were both hurt after their Sanitation Solutions truck lost control in an accident and flipped over, catching fire in the process.
This was along a curvy section of FM 196 and both Kendricks and Walters were seriously injured.
The news said that a medical helicopter was sent out and took the men into the Dallas area so they could be treated at a Plano hospital.
It’s not clear what caused the wreck, but one news source speculated that the truck was going too fast on a curve in the road and lost control.
This is still being investigated and Sanitation Solutions hasn’t made any mention of this so far.
Map of the Area
Commentary:
I was curious about this company, so I did a little research on them through the DOT’s records. Now, I want to preface this by saying that the news might have it completely right; perhaps this was caused by the driver going too fast. That’s certainly a danger and I’ve seen it happen time and time again.
However, it turns out that this company has been cited by the DOT over 90 times in the past two years for various vehicle maintenance & safety violations. I don’t know what caused this accident, but is it possible that perhaps the truck was poorly maintained and something went wrong? Again, it could be that the simple explanation of speed is all there is to it, but I think I’d be remiss not to at least mention this. There should always be an in-depth investigation, no matter the size of the accident, but this seems like a situation where a private investigation would be particularly helpful.
— Grossman Law Offices
