A drunk truck driver left dozens of cars damaged, three injured and one dead as he smashed through a police barricade in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The truck driver was operating a freightliner commercial tractor around midnight when he hit a parked car. While no one sustained injuries in the initial truck accident, the trucker did not stop there. A Union County police officer fired a warning round when he spotted the driver’s erratic maneuvers. The truck sped off, hit more parked cars and barreled through a police barricade before crashing head-on into a vehicle and coming to a stop.
Police charged the truck driver with second-degree vehicular manslaughter, second-degree aggravated manslaughter and second-degree reckless aggravated assault. Authorities believe the truck driver was intoxicated during this incident.
How to Spot a Drunk Truck Driver
An 80,000-pound truck is already a potential hazard on the road. If you throw drinking and driving into the mix, you have the recipe for a catastrophic traffic accident. The legal blood alcohol content (BAC) for normal drivers is .08, but is .04 for commercial truck drivers. Unfortunately, the law doesn’t always deter truck drivers from drinking, so it is important to look for signs of drunk driving. Signs of drunk driving include:
- Trucks that are drifting in and out of a lane
- Trucks that turn with an overly wide radius
- Particularly slow speeds on the highway
- Aggressively tailgating other vehicles
- Driving the wrong way down streets
- Erratic braking
If you see a semi-truck exhibiting these types of maneuvers on the road, you should stay as far as away from it as possible, pull over and call the police.
Spevack Law Firm is a personal injury law firm in New Jersey that fights for victims who have sustained injuries in a truck accident.
