The man behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer that was involved in a fatal accident in Georgia on the evening of Nov. 19 has been charged with vehicular homicide in the second degree and failure to yield. According to the Dade County Sheriff’s Office, both of the charges are misdemeanors. The accident, which took place on the southbound lanes of Interstate 59, claimed the life of one road user and left two others injured.
The 35-year-old Alabama man is accused of not paying proper attention to traffic as he pulled his semi-tractor trailer onto Interstate 59 from Slygo Road. This resulted in a chain-reaction accident that involved three cars as well as the truck. The sequence of events occurred at approximately 6:25 p.m. The Georgia State Patrol is coordinating the investigation into the accident, which media accounts reveal was Dade County’s third fatal crash in just a matter of days.
The driver killed was unable to avoid striking the rear of the tractor-trailer as it pulled into traffic. Initial reports do not reveal what kind of car the deceased road user was driving or whether the driver was properly restrained at the time of the crash. The drivers of the other two cars involved were taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital with what reports described as non-life-threatening injuries.
Too often, passenger vehicle occupants are killed or catastrophically injured in truck wrecks, and they or their surviving family members may pursue legal remedies even when charges are not filed against the tractor-trailer driver involved. This is because the standard of proof is not as strict in civil court, and car accident lawsuit plaintiffs are not required to prove their claims beyond reasonable doubt.
Source: ABC News Channel 9, UPDATE: Truck driver charged in Monday’s deadly Dade County accident, Staff report, Nov. 19, 2018