Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
UPDATE (August 23, 2024): In recent news reports, I saw mention that the truck driver involved in this may have experienced a medical issue, leading to the crash. I don’t know if that’s true or not, of course, but it brings up an interesting issue. Below, I originally discussed how many truck accidents involve factors that employers should be able to foresee or prevent. Believe it or not, medical conditions are sometimes included in that.
Not long ago, I had a case where a truck driver had a medical emergency behind the wheel, and it led to a serious accident. Everyone just wrote it off as unavoidable, but our investigations showed otherwise. The truck driver’s medical records showed a laundry list of conditions that were glaring red flags he was a danger behind the wheel. It was inevitable that something would go wrong eventually, and putting him behind the wheel of a multi-ton truck was like putting a ticking time bomb on the road. The company was simply too lazy to hire someone new, so they ignored the risks, and people got hurt as a result.
Obviously, there are times where a medical emergency really is unforeseeable and unavoidable. I’m not saying companies have to somehow account for those. But when there are basic measures an employer can take to ensure their drivers can do their jobs safely, and they ignore those measures, they should answer for their mistakes. That’s especially true when it results in people getting hurt or killed. Have investigators looked into that possibility here?
Mahoning County, OH — December 5, 2023, Zackery Leffler was killed following a tractor-trailer accident at around 11:00 a.m. along Interstate 80.
Authorities said in their statements that the collision happened along westbound lanes of the interstate near the intersection with Route 46.
According to officials, 25-year-old Zack Leffler was in a Dodge Ram going westbound on the freeway. From oncoming lanes, an 18-wheeler apparently lost control, went across the median, and careened into westbound lanes where it crashed with Leffler’s vehicle. Leffler died as a result. It’s unclear if anyone else was hurt.
Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman
Right now, the exact cause of the accident remains unclear, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone to know pretty much every truck wreck that’s come across my desk with facts like these end up being the result of a serious mistake. Maybe that isn’t what happened here, but things like distraction, speeding, and fatigue are all too common. But it’s important to let the evidence speak for itself. Folks don’t always consider just how challenging a crash like this can truly be, and it’s important to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
I’ll give an example from a case I handled a while back. A truck driver caused a serious crash due to fatigue because he’d been behind the wheel for over 20 hours straight. Authorities were content to blame the driver for that ridiculous mistake (rightfully so) and leave it at that. But having seen all the different, unusual circumstances that can lead to a truck wreck, we made sure independent investigations were more thorough. It turned out the trucker’s fatigued driving was only a symptom of a much bigger problem.
The evidence showed the driver’s employer was actually incentivizing their drivers to drive recklessly. If they sped, broke hours of service, took dangerous short cuts, and otherwise cut every corner possible, they’d be rewarded by their employer. Despite the risk that posed to the lives of others (including the drivers themselves), the company just didn’t give a damn, and people got hurt as a result.
What authorities initially called the result of a bad driver turned out to be a whole company continuously putting lives at risk. Now, I’m not saying that’s what happened here. But the families I’ve helped across hundreds of commercial vehicle wrecks didn’t just want someone to blame. They wanted true accountability for their hardships. Maybe here that will all come down to a single driver, or maybe there will be unusual circumstances that come to light as investigations continue. Ultimately, so long as the evidence can speak for itself, it’s likely those involved here will see a proper resolution.
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