UPDATE (August 5, 2024): Alameda County officials identified the driver killed in the accident as 68-year-old Donald Eng.
Fremont, CA — July 18, 2024, one person was killed and two were injured following an 18-wheeler accident at around 7:00 a.m. along I-680.
The California Highway Patrol said in preliminary statements that the accident happened on southbound lanes near Mission Boulevard South.
According to officials, a tractor-trailer was going along the freeway when, for reasons unclear, it crashed into a Toyota Venza and multiple other vehicles. As a result of the collision, the Toyota driver sustained fatal injuries. Two others involved had reportedly minor injuries. Right now, other details remain unconfirmed.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
While the exact circumstances surrounding the crash aren’t clear, crashes described like this are often the result of a truck driver being distracted, going too fast, or failing to slow down for traffic. If investigations show that’s what happened here, it’s important to understand that the investigations wouldn’t become open-and-shut. Even in situations where it’s clear a truck driver made a mistake, the victims and families need to know why the driver made a mistake. Here’s what I mean by that.
I’ve handled hundreds of commercial vehicle accidents, and what’s often overlooked is that trucking companies often create an environment where a crash is all but inevitable. That’s why investigations into crashes like this need to include questions about factors that may have happened long before the driver got behind the wheel. Was the driver rushing to meet an unreasonable deadline? Did the brakes fail due to neglected maintenance? Is the driver poorly training or inexperienced? Have they or their employer been involved in accidents before? Does the company conduct regular drug testing? What does the GPS and Engine Control Module data say about the truck’s speed leading up to the collision?
By answering these questions, investigators can help root out the underlying issues that led to the crash. That way, there can be appropriate consequences for all wrongdoers, both to see a just resolution for the people harmed and to help ensure the mistakes that caused the accident are corrected before they harm anyone else. So while I can’t say what did or didn’t lead to this specific accident, experience tells me it’s best the investigations are in the hands of accident reconstructionists who will dig into evidence beyond just the crash scene. Even if all of this was just one person’s mistake, there needs to be certainty that nothing important slipped through the cracks.
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