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 is amazing to me that there are not more crashes around here in Washington State. We have got plenty of view obstructing hills, but that is not the problem.
The bad drivers who are not smoking pot are playing with their cell phones and a lot of those who are smoking or "vaping" pot are also playing with their cell phones. And by playing with their cell phones, I do not mean that they are merely talking on them. They are looking down at their phones while they are texting or trying to get the phone to do something. The other day I even saw some guy with a laptop in the passenger's seat and he was doing something with that while driving.
You can tell who they are even when you can't see what they are up to because of tinted windows. One minute they will be leaving an excessive amount of following distance or driving 10 mph below the speed limit. The next thing you know they are doing 20 mph over the speed limit weaving in and out of traffic and passing on the right even when there is plenty of space to pass on the left. Then they will start driving slow again.
I am not banning trucks, I said give 18 wheelers their own lane. Although rail is also possible, genius.
No, Kansas City on the Kansas side
“So the most he could do for 5 dead folks is 5 years.”
If he’s convicted on all counts chances are the sentences will run concurrently so he will only get a year. With time served and “good” time he’ll be out in half that.
That’s how it works here, anyway.
L
Rail makes some sense genius, until you need something quickly, or maybe a few miles from a rail line.
That's correct. Nearly everything you typically use has spent some time on a truck.
My new Jeep has a dashboard screen with icons to adjust various functions. It's great for the backup camera and when stopped to visualize settings, but not so when driving.
I do that as well as "Drive 1/4 mile ahead". Say you are approaching a hill in the right lane and up ahead you see a cement truck or semi or something big that you know will choke on a hill. So you go into the fast lane and sure enough the rig slows down and turns on his flashers.
Next thing is to be prepared to slam on the brakes as someone who doesn't drive ahead suddenly realizes there's a slow-moving truck ahead of him and NOW tries to get in your lane. You can usually tell their Moment of Revelation as their head snaps up and the frantically look from side to side. Averted many a collision because I knew what was coming.
It can be that way even on a level street at a red light. You see a big truck in the right lane, so get over to the left to avoid a slow start. Sure enough, the Son of the Above will, of a sudden, jerk his ahead around and try to cut you off.
Many, many years ago I was a nationally competitive bicycle racer. I rode over 10,000 miles a year training mostly in traffic. I did my best to not be disruptive to other vehicles on the road, but there were often hostile drivers even on the country roads that I spent most of my time on. Some intentionally came close and even forced me off the road causing serious injuries on more than one occasion. And of course I was hit by a little old lady after her third cataract surgery.
But these days I feel the roads are much more dangerous for bicyclists than they were back then because of all the people who are not paying attention to the road while they are driving. Most hostile drivers are not intentionally trying to kill you just run you off the road, and most blind old ladies are not driving all that fast. But these people who are speeding along and not paying close attention to the road ahead of them are a menace.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Cars use Hydraulic brakes, Trucks use pneumatically actuated systems. The Air systems adds a little more delay to the brake activation, this typically works out to about double the stopping distance for vehicles equipped with Air brakes compared to hydraulic systems. Sudden stops in a heavy vehicle can be very nerve racking as depending on how your load is arranged you can have the load trying to get in front of you (jacknife).
Wish I could remember where I was. Been far too long.
Guy that I was attempting to buy parts from had been in a bad accident with his truck. He was mostly intact though.
I just remember how hilly that area was. Yes, unlike what most of us have experienced, usually.
>>>That is actually a well written article.
Except for not making it clear why this process has taken so doggone long.
[Bonner Springs]
Maybe that’s where I met the guy to look at truck parts. I just remember that it had hills and a Sonic. But then, you can no longer find a town without a Sonic it seems.
It’s not complicated at all.
One of the vehicles that this idiot crashed into was another semi with the same type of airbrakes that the crasher had. How come one truck was able to stop safely but the other one wasn’t?
Could it be that one driver was watching the road ahead and the other one wasn’t?
But there was no intent so how can a reasonable prosecutor pursue this?
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