Woman Injured in Log Truck Accident on Oglethorpe Highway in Walthourville, GA
Walthourville, GA -- June 7, 2022, a woman was injured after an accident where a utility truck crashed with a log truck on Oglethorpe Highway.
Investigators responded to the area of West Oglethorpe Highway and Talmadge Road at around 7:00 a.m. In their reports, they said that a woman in a utility truck somehow crashed into the logs on a truck that was making a wide right turn.
Due to the collision, the woman sustained unspecified injuries. No other injuries were reported. At this time, the cause of the crash remains unclear.
Commentary on Log Truck Accident on Oglethorpe Highway in Walthourville
Authorities described this as the woman not seeing the truck slowing down, and I certainly don't have a specific reason to doubt this. But with cargo like logs and a truck supposedly making a wide right turn, it's worth making absolutely sure whether or not this all was actually avoidable--and importantly, who could have avoided it.
This all reminds me of a situation I handled a while back where someone hit a large steel slab hanging off the back of a flatbed trailer. Initially, authorities just said the victim didn't avoid the truck, but our continued investigations showed a more disturbing chain of events.
First of all, the slab was hanging way over the end of the trailer because the trailer was too small. The driver clearly didn't care about this and decided to make the haul anyway. To make matters worse, though, the "red" flag tied to the load to mark it was so old and faded that it might as well not have even been there. What initially seemed like some driver not paying attention was actually a truck driver hauling dangerous and illegally loaded cargo.
Now, I am not saying that happened here. But I also don't see any clear evidence to rule that out. If nothing else, that can be a sign that there needs to be more thorough investigations into what exactly went wrong and what can be done for the victims going forward.
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