Posted on 04/19/2019 11:09:23 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A Colorado truck driver has been charged with five counts of vehicular homicide nearly two years after a fiery crash that killed five people on the Kansas Turnpike near Bonner Springs.
Kenny B. Ford, 58, of Greeley, Colorado, appeared without an attorney Friday morning in Leavenworth County District Court. The misdemeanor charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail on each count.
The charges were filed Feb. 26, but remained sealed until Friday’s court appearance.
The July 11, 2017, wreck occurred on westbound Interstate 70 near 174th Street. Traffic was backed up due to road construction when, around 2:30 that Tuesday afternoon, Ford’s semi encountered the backup after cresting a hill.
Unable to stop in time, the truck rammed into an SUV driven by 61-year-old Teresa J. Butler of Urbana, Illinois. The force of the impact spun her GMC Terrain toward a retaining wall, killing Butler and her passenger, Karen Lynn Kennedy, 63, of New Palestine, Ill.
Ford’s truck then hit a car driven by 83-year-old Sheldon Cohen. His wife, 79-year-old Virginia Cohen, was with him. The Topeka couple died when their Buick LaCrosse was pushed into a guardrail and wound up in a ditch.
Finally, the truck hit a Ford Taurus. Its driver, Ricardo Mireles, 38, also from Topeka, was killed when his car was pushed underneath another tractor-trailer and caught fire.
Butler and Kennedy both worked in health care and were on their way to Colorado for vacation. The Cohens were retired Washburn University professors, and Mireles was the father of two and an avid sports fan.
The Kansas Highway Patrol spent more than a year investigating the wreck. Afterward the Leavenworth County Attorney’s office spent several more months weighing the evidence and seeking answers to followup questions, County Attorney Todd Thompson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
It would be interesting to load this situation, the exact height of the hill, distances etc into a simulator and see how many drivers get out unscathed. By the sound of things I’d guess not many.
Sadly, a lot of it just comes from experience. I try to pass that on to the kids, but not sure how much of it takes.
I watch my rear and side mirrors quite a bit. Then I will predict what is going to happen. “Okay - in a few seconds a red car will cut in front of me.”
“Dad - there’s not even a red car.”
Then the red car cuts in front of me. “Wow! How did you know that!?”
“Well, I watched him in my mirror driving like an idiot weaving through traffic. I leave enough space in front of me in case I have to stop quickly - unlike most others that are bumper-to-bumper.”
I have been surprised a few times by motorcyles that come up from behind at 3x the speed of traffic!
More details here:
The hill was described as “slight”. Traffic was said to be backed up 2 miles prior to the actual construction and the first sign warning of the construction was said to be 1/2 mile prior to the crash.
The driver who caused this got off easy.
So by banning trucks, just how do you propose getting everything you own, eat and use? I’ll wait.
Any “professional” driver who doesn’t understand that backups are a given when there is construction shouldn’t be behind the wheel.
Early one morning, probably 3am, I was fooling along doing about 85 and the only car on the highway. Suddenly I got passed by a go fast bike doing easy 130. Then several more.
Honestly it looked like fun. They weren’t in traffic, had good follow distances, one passed me first to see if I would freak out.
I had no problem with it. Do that on traffic? Got a real problem.
Western KS, as Colorado looms?
“to drive like everyone else is an idiot and trying to kill you”
That is exactly how I drive because it’s true. Well, maybe not everyone, but I am convinced that there are three or four cars out to get me on my way home from work every day.
Yeah, hard to say if you weren’t there. Sounds like a political prosecution though.
In Hillary’s Marxist village, every accident is a crime.
I’ve driven cross country Illinois to Arizona and back many, many times. The most terrifying thing is being tail gated by a semi at 75-80 mph which is all too common. Saw some dandy semi pile ups.
While stopped in Traffic on I 81 I heard a loud noise behind
In the mirror, I saw a semi in the right lane on it’s side and sliding directly toward me. Fortunately, it stopped before hitting me or anyone in my lane.
The driver hit the rear end of an SUV and mashed it into the semi before it, glanced off and swerved across the right lane to the median then overturned as the driver over corrected in attempt to get back on the road. Although all the airbags deployed, the SUV driver died. Semi drivers accosted the wrecked semi driver and accused him of murder. He could not speak English
When stopped on the interstate I now allow sufficient space to exit if necessary
That is actually a well written article. So rare these days.
Who, What, When, Where, Why.
I-81 is a death trap and the drivers are idiots trying to kill you.
There have been an awful lot of lives lost on this interstate here in CNY.
I remember when my family went on a family vacation out west when I was in high school.
We drove and spent three weeks seeing the different national parks. We came back through Kansas and all I remember was how flat it was. All the way to the horizon there wasn’t a hill to be seen.
It seemed like we weren’t even moving cause the scenery was the same for hours on end, just vast fields of the same kind of crop. Corn I think, but maybe some sunflowers, too.
I remember when my family went on a family vacation out west when I was in high school.
We drove and spent three weeks seeing the different national parks. We came back through Kansas and all I remember was how flat it was. All the way to the horizon there wasn’t a hill to be seen.
My neighborhood. This behavior is all too common along I-70 as it winds through the Kansas City area. Big rigs are putting the pedal to the metal to shave off a few minutes through the heavy traffic along the Interstates. Mixed modal logistics brings heavy rail and truck traffic to the metro where I-70, I-35, I-29 and I-48 brings long haul freight into commuter traffic into a mix of Ma and Pa Kettle drivers and wanna be Mario Andretti’s. All driving too fast. The speed limits tend to be either 70 or 65, but most are going 80.
Eastern Kansas ... near Missouri. Western Kansas is flat as a pancake.
Without having been there and seen it, in the 3D rendering this sounds like "an accident" not vehicular homicide.
They probably had signs up for miles about construction with no construction, traffic was going along as it normally does at normal speeds, you come over a hill (after a mile or two of telling you there is construction going on) and boom...traffic is backed up.
The guy in front of you can stop, but you are driving an 18 wheeler and you hit the car in front of you, and the chain reaction begins.
I thought for sure there would be some kind of tailgating, road rage, completely faulty vehicle, poor maintenance, whatever.
But no. It is about the fact that trucking companies are only liable for up to a million dollars total, and that some kind of technology wasn't installed on the truck (not mandatory to be installed...it ISN'T against the law to NOT have it installed)
An attorney representing Butler’s estate told The Star that the families of the five victims agreed to settle with the company and its insurer rather than sue.
That attorney, Chad Beckett of Urbana, Ilinois, said he would be violating a confidentiality agreement if he disclosed the terms of the settlement, but characterized it this way:
“I’ll just say everybody left unhappy,” he said.
Beckett said he hasn’t handled many truck wreck cases and was surprised to learned how little liability insurance trucking companies are required to carry given the potential damage that a truck wreck can cause. Federal records show that Indian Creek Express’ insurance policy then and now pays no more than $1 million per occurrence, no matter how many vehicles are involved.
The minimum liability coverage required under federal law is $750,000 for all but haulers of hazardous material. Despite inflation, that hasn’t changed in 35 years.
“That’s what this case has shown me,” Beckett said. “The coverage is not close to adequate to compensate the families.”
When I was sixteen and my brother was seventeen, he was driving me into Fairfax, VA on the Beltway back in the early Seventies. We were doing about 70 MPH (which was the speed limit back then) and came over a crest in the highway and traffic was completely backed up. We were just barely able to stop, but a car plowed into our station wagon at about 60 MPH which put the engine of his car where his stick shift had previously been. It ended up being a five car collision, and the guy who hit us had his face split open and was walking across traffic that was still whizzing by as his face was covered with blood. My brother and I were both miraculously unharmed saw this, my brother grabbed the guy, stopped a car, and my brother simply opened the door, put the guy in the car and told the guy to drive him to a hospital! (how things have changed, just reading that) I felt undamaged, but had smashed my head and face against the windscreen of the car when we were hit. I often wonder if I had been concussed and simply didn't know it.
Then the weirdest thing happened. Out of the blue, my dad appeared right there asking what was going on! It was like viewing an apparition, and though I was speechless, wondering where he had come from, my brother blurted out "That guy f***ing guy just ran into the back of us!" I had my mouth open, it was the first time my brother had ever said the F-Word to my dad! (I don't even think my dad registered it)
It turns out my dad, who was the XO on the Navy base we were living on, was moonlighting on Saturdays, Sundays, and weeknights at a big department chain in Washington DC called "GEM", and was on his way home in the other direction when he saw our family car there and came over. THAT was unexpected, to say the least.
Turned out the back end of our station wagon (a brand new 1972 Chevrolet Greenbriar) had the tailgate and bumper completely caved in and it buckled the gas tank underneath, but after the State Police inspected it, they said it was intact and thought the car might still be drivable! (again, at the speed the car hit us, it was amazing enough neither of us were hurt, but there was only that level of damage, especially considering the state of the car that hit us, completely demolished back to the driver's seat)
They would NEVER have let us drive that car today. I am certain it would have been towed today. But the State Police asked if we wanted to give it a try.
Honestly, this is still one of the most memorable things in my life. This accident happened at rush hour on a normally jammed highway leading into one of the busiest cities in the country. It was now dark as my brother and I got into the car to try it out. The entire 5 lane highway had probably been closed completely for at least a half hour. That five lane highway was dark and empty in front of us as we slowly drove away. I turned to look back, and as far as I could see, back into the distance, snaking back up and over one hill, then another to the visible horizon, were five lanes chock full of blazing car headlights, all backed up. That was quite a sight.
Point is, it was an accident. We never blamed the guy who hit us. He couldn't stop. We just knew that. Thing is, this prosecution of this truck driver for vehicular homicide seems wrong to me. I admit I don't know the entire story, but it seems wrong.
Take a virtual drive (via Google maps street view) of that stretch of I-70 where the crash occurred.
There are no hills there that could significantly block forward vision, particularly from the elevated cab of a semi.
Drivers ahead of the truck who caused the crash were perfectly able to slow down and not crash, so forward vision was not an issue for them.
The driver who caused the crash simply wasn’t paying attention. It was his fault.
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