Dallas County, AR — April 21, 2025, Sandra Cline was killed and Thomas Gresham was injured in a truck accident at about 11 a.m. on State Highway 9.
Authorities said a northbound 2012 Dodge Ram crashed into the back of a Peterbilt semi-truck that was parked on the shoulder of the highway.
A passenger in the pickup, Sandra Lynn Cline, 42, died in the crash, according to authorities, while driver Thomas Clay Gresham, 41, suffered unspecified injuries.
Authorities have not released any additional information about the Dallas County crash at this time.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
When a pickup crashes into the back of a parked semi-truck on the shoulder of a highway like State Highway 9, the first question that must be asked is whether the truck was properly secured and visible in a way that gave approaching drivers a fair chance to avoid it. Just because a vehicle is off the roadway doesn’t automatically mean it’s parked safely or legally, especially when it comes to commercial trucks.
Under federal safety regulations, when a commercial truck parks on the shoulder, particularly during the daytime, the driver is required to activate hazard lights immediately and deploy warning devices — such as reflective triangles — within ten minutes. These steps are meant to alert approaching drivers that there’s a stopped vehicle ahead, long before they get close enough for a collision to happen. If the parked truck in this case wasn’t marked properly or if it was positioned too close to the lane of travel, that could make it much harder for other drivers to see and react in time.
The severity of the outcome — one life lost and another person injured — only heightens the need for a full investigation into both vehicles’ conditions and their respective positions on the road. Visibility, lane placement, truck lighting and roadway design all matter here. A shoulder is intended as a safety buffer, but it’s not a guarantee of protection. Both the parked truck driver and the approaching vehicle operator share a duty to use the shoulder safely.
When a passenger vehicle ends up striking a stopped semi-truck, the law doesn’t just look at who was moving and who wasn’t. It looks at whether everyone involved took the reasonable steps necessary to prevent harm. Because being stopped on the side of the road isn’t enough to absolve a commercial driver of responsibility, especially when a failure to properly warn others can turn the shoulder from a place of safety into a point of deadly impact.
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