Appomattox County, VA — October 31, 2025, four people were injured in a truck accident at about 4:30 p.m. on U.S. Route 460/Richmond Highway near Evergreen.
Authorities said a semi-truck was heading west near Morning Star Road when it crashed into a Chevrolet pickup and a school bus. The impact forced the pickup to overturn and hit a student who had just gotten off the bus.
The student and two people in the pickup were flown to an area with life-threatening injuries after the crash, according to authorities. Another person from the truck was hospitalized with unspecified injuries.
There were seven other children on the Appomattox County Public Schools bus at the time of the crash, authorities said. Five of them suffered minor injuries that did not require treatment at the scene.
The truck driver was cited for following too close, according to authorities.
Authorities have not released any additional information about the Appomattox County crash at this time.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
When people hear about a crash involving a semi-truck, a school bus and a pickup, especially one that injured a child who had just gotten off the bus, they want to know: How could something like this happen? Was this just a case of bad luck, or did someone make a preventable mistake?
According to reports, the truck driver has already been cited for following too closely. That’s a starting point, but not the whole story. In my experience, a citation is just the tip of the iceberg. The real question is what evidence supports that conclusion, and whether it tells the full story of how this multi-vehicle collision unfolded.
The biggest unanswered question here is what the semi-truck was doing just before the crash. Was it already braking? Was it speeding? Did it fail to respond to stopped or slowing vehicles in time? Those aren’t just technical details. They go to the heart of whether the driver was paying attention and whether the truck was being operated safely.
To get those answers, we’d need to look at the truck’s engine control module (ECM), the black box that can show how fast the truck was going, whether the brakes were applied and how long before impact the driver took action. If the truck was equipped with in-cab cameras, that could show whether the driver was distracted, tired or simply failed to react.
Another layer of scrutiny belongs on the company that put this driver on the road. Was this someone with a clean record and proper training? Or, as I’ve seen in past cases, did the company hire someone they shouldn’t have, maybe without vetting their driving history or testing their ability to handle a rig in high-traffic conditions?
The timing of the crash — around 4:30 p.m., likely close to school release hours — raises still more questions. School buses making stops along rural highways are a predictable part of the afternoon. Trucking companies should train their drivers to anticipate these situations, slow down and allow ample space. If that didn’t happen here, then this wasn’t an unpredictable accident. It was preventable.
And we still don’t know whether the truck actually hit the student, or whether it pushed the pickup into them. That distinction matters. Depending on how the collision sequence unfolded, different parties may bear responsibility.
These aren’t academic questions. They’re factual ones. And they can only be answered by collecting and analyzing the right evidence.
Key Takeaways:
- A citation for following too closely raises questions, but further investigation is needed to understand the full cause of the crash.
- Black box data and in-cab cameras can help determine what actions the truck driver took in the moments before impact.
- It’s unclear whether the truck directly struck the student or whether a chain reaction involving the pickup caused the injury.
- The truck driver’s employer may share responsibility, especially if training or hiring practices were inadequate.
- Getting to the truth requires more than police reports. It takes a full review of the truck’s data, driver history and company policies.
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