it can happen in an instant

[georgiagirl]

Truckers make ONE mistake and you're toast. TOAST I SAY>>>TOAST!!!

This found in the Macon Telegraph today.


A tractor-trailer truck driver is charged with vehicular homicide after sheriff's deputies say he hit a motorcycle with two passengers head-on.

Corporal Sean Alexander with the Houston County Sheriff's Office says 28-year-old Jason Wesley Vinson of Byron died Sunday night at the intersection of Highway 11 and Highway 49 when the 2007 Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle he was on was hit by a tractor-trailer truck driven by 39-year-old Harvinder Singh.

Alexander says Singh ran a stop sign while traveling Northbound on Highway 49 and turned into the wrong lane going North onto Highway 41 hitting the motorcycle.

The driver of the motorcycle, 27-year-old Thomas C. Abercrombie of Macon, was injured and is in critical condition with multiple bone fractures according to Alexander.

Alexander says Singh is charged with failure to stop at a stop sign, failure to yield and reckless driving.

Singh, who is from Hayward, California, is also charged with two felonies. He's charged with vehicular homicide and serious injury by a vehicle.

More charges are possible and the incident is still under investigation.

Singh is being held at the Houston County Sheriffs Office Detention Facility with no bond.

[granpa]

Sounds more like 2 mistakes. Running a stop sign and driving in the wrong lane. Did it say if he was licensed or driving illegal?

[showtrucker]

Originally Posted by georgiagirl

Truckers make ONE mistake and you're toast. TOAST I SAY>>>TOAST!!!

This found in the Macon Telegraph today.


A tractor-trailer truck driver is charged with vehicular homicide after sheriff's deputies say he hit a motorcycle with two passengers head-on.

Corporal Sean Alexander with the Houston County Sheriff's Office says 28-year-old Jason Wesley Vinson of Byron died Sunday night at the intersection of Highway 11 and Highway 49 when the 2007 Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle he was on was hit by a tractor-trailer truck driven by 39-year-old Harvinder Singh.

Alexander says Singh ran a stop sign while traveling Northbound on Highway 49 and turned into the wrong lane going North onto Highway 41 hitting the motorcycle.

The driver of the motorcycle, 27-year-old Thomas C. Abercrombie of Macon, was injured and is in critical condition with multiple bone fractures according to Alexander.

Alexander says Singh is charged with failure to stop at a stop sign, failure to yield and reckless driving.

Singh, who is from Hayward, California, is also charged with two felonies. He's charged with vehicular homicide and serious injury by a vehicle.

More charges are possible and the incident is still under investigation.

Singh is being held at the Houston County Sheriffs Office Detention Facility with no bond.

Hmm obviously an un-american indian driver in a very foreign area.....a young person on a ninja two things not cool meeting head on and throw in warner robbins and the macon telegraph small wonder there hasn't been a lynching in macon already.....I rememebr the macon telegraph well from the old days of the 79 strike when we shut down the "supper club" there at unadilla as i being one of the "official un-official" spokesmen for the long gone independent truckers association and having to deal with their questions seems they were more soverign grand inspector generals more than anything i mean what's your name where are you from why are you here what is the connection between truckers and the american agriculture movement ? ? ? I mean were they reporting the news or were they reporting to the f.b.i.ers ? ? ? Definately not truck friendly even back then....Oh well ain't nuttin but truckin trash....yeah right.....

[joehill]

Originally Posted by granpa

Sounds more like 2 mistakes. Running a stop sign and driving in the wrong lane. Did it say if he was licensed or driving illegal?

I would be suprised if he was either unlicensed OR illegal..

More than likely, he was tired, far from home, and unfamiliar with the local streets and may have cut his turn a little wider than he should have.With tragic and horrible consequenses for all involved.

But then ,I wasn't there..It just bother's me that the man is facing a murder rap, for making the mistake of going to work that day..

Then again, who the hell knows..

The other day I was heading into Denver( A Kenny approved city)and got "pulled around back" the Limon scales for the standard registration check, I went inside the scalehouse with just my permit book, knowing my professional appearance would not invite concerns about my log book.

No sooner did I close the door to the scalehouse, then I got a center stage seat to the scalemaster "stressing" the importance of obeying the red light signal at the scale to "Habib", who was apparently unfamiliar
with such strange customs..

After a suitable tongue lashing ,and an appropriate display of conciliation on "Habib's" part,complete with promises to devout his unwavering attention to the signals at a scalehouse.

I was then ordered to the counter. I presented my permit book for his inspection,which he only glanced at ,before he thanked me for brightening his day, and sent me on my way.

While I thought he might have been a little "rough" on Habib, this type of case only gives rise to wonder about,how many other "professional drivers" are equally far removed from the basic rules of the road..

I can go either way oni t it though, but would only be speculating without being aware of the details of the accident.

[georgiagirl]

The Macon Telegraph is a Knight Ridder corporation. Not impressive if you ask me. Mostly filled with journalist right out of college - Mercer to be exact, with little life experiences. They then move on to bigger and better "deals" oftentimes jumping from newspaper to television if they have a pretty face.

While there are few experienced journalist with a resume a tadbit better than researching and analyzing things such as, "The Old Man and the Sea", or finding out why the old man sleeps under the bridge, they do have a tendency to report what the reading public wants to hear.

Macon's not an industrial city. There's very few trucks in and out of the city, but we do have one heck of a red clay pit and dump trucks are everywhere. They only require a Class "B", but many of them are idiots as I have heard them yacking on the radio and on the side bands. Then others ride the bumpers of the cars so close that you can not get your size 8 foot between your bumper and theirs. During pecan and peach season, the covered wagons are in abundance, but they are usually short lived and for the most part, trucks come in from out of town, stay a night, load their truck and leave. They don't cause a bunch of problems.

But anyway, but I was just thinking that trucker's do make mistakes rather or not they're drunk, illegal, or stupid. Even the best of the best screw up sometimes and one big (or small) mistake could cost you your life or that of someone elses.

Sometimes it happens. Four wheelers are allowed to have accidents and big truck accidents become federal cases.

GG

[88mikey]

Georgia Girl,
Hey, I'm from the Dublin-Eastman area and I know the stretch of road described in the accident. It was a mistake, a costly one.I always hated the I-16/I-75 interchange,personally, or as the telegraph calls it, the Devil's Triangle. Nobody seems to know what lane they need to be in, even though it's marked well on signs like all other exits. As for the accident, it's one of four this month in middle GA involving motorcycles fatalities.One here in Dublin involved a motorcycle collision with a police car after it blocked the roadway. No charges have been filed. Go figure.
88Mikey

[bigjoe]

Another example of ill trained non or poor English speaking foreign drivers failing to pay attention and observe our traffic laws. Now a young innocent person has died for our government's mistake and trucking company greed.

The prescence of foreign drivers who will work for little compensation continues to plague this country and must be stopped. This is America, dammit and it must be run by for and with Americans. All foreign influence must be outed now.

Kudos to the local law enforcement for incarcerating this foreign scum without bail. Perhaps vehicular homicide should carry the death penalty.

[fozzy]

Originally Posted by bigjoe

Another example of ill trained non or poor English speaking foreign drivers failing to pay attention and observe our traffic laws. Now a young innocent person has died for our government's mistake and trucking company greed.

The prescence of foreign drivers who will work for little compensation continues to plague this country and must be stopped. This is America, dammit and it must be run by for and with Americans. All foreign influence must be outed now.

Kudos to the local law enforcement for incarcerating this foreign scum without bail. Perhaps vehicular homicide should carry the death penalty.

OH BS! There is nothing in the story that says that this driver is foreign born or does not speak English. There are a whole slew of people with the Sir name of Singh who speak proper English (British). There have been plenty of good old boys who have things that have killed plenty of people. This is just more "straw man" hysteria. This guy made a mistake that will almost certainly cause him to lose his job and probably his freedom. His Race or Nationality have nothing to do with it.

[bigjoe]

Oh B.S. back....

There are plenty of stories that can be documented about foreign drivers that neither speak nor understand english who constantly violate our traffic laws and endanger the American public.

We must rid this country of all non Americans....ragheads, mexicans,russians, and any others who come here to take American jobs without respect to our customs and American way of living.

[fozzy]

Originally Posted by bigjoe

Oh B.S. back....

There are plenty of stories that can be documented about foreign drivers that neither speak nor understand english who constantly violate our traffic laws and endanger the American public.

We must rid this country of all non Americans....ragheads, mexicans,russians, and any others who come here to take American jobs without respect to our customs and American way of living.

LOL.. thats so stupid its funny! The biggest crashes in this industry's history were caused by Americans. Americans not following the rules, American men who felt that they regs were for other people. Dream on. There is no such thing as an "American job" There is a job, and these Americans are filling them. The fact that they normally do it better than the slugs who they take the jobs from is another issue. This guy was just as American as you are.

Case in point:
The accident occurred March 15, 1999, at 9:47pm Central (local) time in Bourbonnais, Illinois, in the United States on the Illinois Central Railroad. The southbound Amtrak train 59, the City of New Orleans, hit a semi truck, loaded with steel, that was blocking a grade crossing. The accident resulted in the deaths of 11 of the train's passengers, 122 injuries and over US$14 million in damages.
Upon impact, both of the train's locomotives and 11 of the train's 14 passenger cars derailed; the derailed cars hit two of the 10 freight cars on a siding next to the mainline. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) attributes the cause of the accident to the truck driver's reaction to the grade crossing signals. Thinking he could beat the train across the tracks, the driver chose to proceed onto the tracks in front of the train. The driver reported that the crossing signal did not activate until his vehicle was "right on top of the track", but he also stated that he did not want to brake quickly to avoid a shifting load that could hit the back of the truck's cab. Witnesses stated that the gates came down after the truck had entered the grade crossing. One witness stated that the gate clipped the truck's trailer and that part of the gate may have broken off as a result.
The NTSB's investigation placed the fault of the accident on the truck driver, John R. Stokes, and his failure to yield at the grade crossing; Stokes was sentenced September 21, 2004, to two years in prison for logbook and hours of service violations. In the sentencing trial Kankakee County Judge Clark Erickson stated that it was not proven if a lack of rest played a factor in the accident but that he believed Stokes would have been more able to make safe driving decisions if he had been fully rested.[1]



So basically one of the worst "accidents" in the history of the industry was caused by some super trucker white boy...