Latah County, TX — April 18, 2024, Andrew Abbott was killed in a logging truck accident at approximately 1:00 p.m. along S.H. 6.
In the reported accident, a fatal collision occurred involving a log truck and a pickup at the intersection of State Highways 6 and 9. Andrew Abbott, a 55-year-old man from Grangeville, was driving a Toyota Tacoma westbound on Highway Six when a log truck, also traveling west and operated by a 55-year-old man from Troy, attempted to make a left turn onto Highway Nine.
During the turn, an over-length log swung out from the truck into the westbound lane, striking the windshield of Abbott’s Toyota, leading to his immediate death. After being hit, Abbott’s vehicle continued uncontrollably, eventually driving through a barbed wire fence and coming to a stop in a field north of the highway. The driver of the log truck did not stop immediately after the incident but was later located.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
Many people may mistakenly read about a crash like this and assume it’s an open and shut matter. I suspect most people will blame the truck driver and move on with their day. That would be a mistake. Accidents caused by cargo transported on a truck are much more complicated than they appear. More importantly, many of the answers to why a crash happened can’t always be found at the crash scene.
What makes these accidents so complex is that multiple parties often bear some responsibility for how cargo is loaded on to a truck. Obviously, drivers have a responsibility to check their load and make sure that it’s safe to transport on the road. At the same time, trucking company obligations include training, supervising, and providing the correct tools for drivers to perform their responsibilities. Lastly, shippers can also have a responsibility to ensure that cargo is transported safely. A recent case I litigated illustrates how these three different actors can all contribute to a crash.
It came about in very similar circumstances to this crash in the news. A truck picked up a slab of steel from a manufacturer late at night. The manufacturer loaded the steel onto a trailer that was too short for the slab. The truck driver scheduled to pick up the load noticed this before he accepted it and called his employer. In the back and forth between the employer and the manufacturer, the manufacturer made it clear to the trucking company that if they didn’t accept the load as it was, then the manufacturer would find a trucking company that would. The trucking company then relayed that message to their driver and basically told him, “Take the load or you’re out of a job.”
Against his better judgment, the driver took the load. He was only a few miles down the road when he turned and a car driving behind him struck the slab that was hanging off the back the trailer, killing the car’s driver in the process. Given that the crash occurred at night, the car’s driver had no chance to see the steel hanging of the back of the trailer.
My team and I uncovered all of this during our own investigation. At first glance it would have been easy to blame the trucker, but the evidence showed that he was the least culpable person in the whole chain of a events. Ultimately, we were able to hold the trucking company responsible for carelessly insisting that their driver take the dangerous load; we also held the manufacturer accountable for loading the cargo in a reckless manner in the first place.
Beyond not jumping to conclusions, I think the larger takeaway for crashes like these is that it’s next to impossible to get all the answers for what caused this crash without going beyond the crash scene. Investigators need to dig into both the trucking company, as well as whomever loaded the cargo in the first place. If they’re not doing that, it’s not too harsh to say that they’re writing a crash description, not conducting an investigation.
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