Calhoun County, MI — April 8, 2025, one person was injured in an early morning truck accident on 11 Mile Road/State Highway 311 near Q Drive.
Authorities said a car was headed north when it crashed into a semi-truck, leaving it wedged under the tanker.
The driver of the car was hospitalized with serious injuries after being freed from the vehicle, according to authorities.
No other injuries were reported in the crash north of Burlington.
Authorities have not released any additional information about the Calhoun County crash. The accident is still under investigation.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
When a car ends up wedged under a tanker truck, the first things I want to know are why the two vehicles ended up in the same space at the same time, and whether anything could have been done to prevent that from happening. Just because a car struck a truck doesn’t automatically mean the smaller vehicle is to blame. In fact, the kind of impact described here, where a car goes under the trailer, often raises serious safety concerns that go beyond driver error.
From the information available, it appears the car was traveling north on State Highway 311 when it collided with a semi, ultimately ending up stuck beneath the tanker. That suggests either a rear-end or side underride situation. In either case, the question becomes whether the truck was moving, stopped, turning or pulling across the roadway at the time of the crash. Each of those scenarios carries its own legal implications.
If the truck was pulling out or turning across traffic, the law requires the driver to make sure the movement can be completed safely. That includes making sure there’s enough time and distance for other vehicles to see and avoid them. I’ve handled cases where trucks moved slowly across two-lane roads without proper signaling or without taking into account how fast other vehicles were approaching, and it ended with devastating results.
Another angle that needs to be looked at is the truck’s visibility. Was it properly lit? Were the reflective markings intact and clean? Was it still dark out at the time of the crash, and if so, did the tanker have enough lighting to be seen clearly by approaching traffic? If visibility was compromised in any way, that could be a contributing factor, regardless of who technically had the right of way.
And then there’s the issue of underride protection. If this was a rear-end crash, the design and condition of the truck’s underride guard, if it had one, should be part of the investigation. These guards are supposed to prevent exactly this kind of intrusion into the cab of a passenger vehicle, but not all trucks are equipped with them, and those that are don’t always meet current safety standards. In side impacts, there may be no protection at all.
It’s also important to know how quickly investigators are moving to gather evidence. That includes downloading the truck’s engine control module to determine speed and brake usage, collecting any dashcam footage and taking detailed measurements of the crash scene. Too often, early assumptions based on who hit whom don’t hold up once all the facts are in.
At the end of the day, someone was seriously injured in a crash involving a commercial vehicle. That’s not something that should be explained away with a quick judgment. The law expects commercial drivers, and their employers, to operate with a higher level of care, and when a crash like this occurs, the investigation should reflect that standard by digging into every possible cause. Because unless we understand how and why that car ended up under that trailer, we haven’t really understood the crash at all.
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