Wahsatch, UT — A 25-year old man who was a passenger in a semi-truck was injured this past Saturday morning (September 19, 2015) after an accident on I-80. The accident happened around 9:00 a.m. when the driver of the semi-truck fell asleep at the wheel and crashed.
This was near mile marker 191, near the town of Wahsatch, which is close to the Wyoming border.
Police didn’t release any names, but said that a 46-year old trucker was headed east along I-80 that morning when he apparently fell asleep at the wheel and swerved off the highway, overturning in the process. Both he and his passenger, a 25-year old man, were injured and taken to a hospital in Evanston, WY.
The 25-year old passenger suffered more serious injuries, but was not in life-threatening condition.
The 46-year old truck driver was also cited for careless driving. It’s not clear who they were driving for that morning.
Map of the Area
Commentary:
This is really disturbing because you hear horror stories of truckers who stay up all night and try to drive as many hours as possible without sleeping. I don’t know if that’s what happened here, but I’m very curious as to why this driver wasn’t able to keep his eyes open that morning. I know the FMCSA has rules for how long truckers can stay on the road and how often they have to have “rest breaks,” so the first I thing to be investigated here, in my opinion, ought to be the truck’s logbook or Qualcomm data. That can show how long the trucker was on the road since his last rest break.
However, this truck had a tandem driver (provided the passenger wasn’t simply a hitchhiker or a friend), so shouldn’t this trucker have had ample time to rest? Does that mean that it’s possible he was under the influence or something like that? I don’t really know the answers to those questions, but I think people deserve answers. At the very least, whoever this driver worker for needs to be addressed because if this had happened and another car was hit, the consequences could have easily been deadly.
— Grossman Law Offices
