Samuel Ralph Injured in Truck Accident on SH 6 in Bosque County, TX
Bosque County, TX — November 10, 2022, 76-year-old Samuel Ralph was injured in a crash with a tractor-trailer on State Highway 6 in Bosque County.
Authorities say the incident happened around 5:40 p.m. on SH 6 at Farm to Market Road 2136. Preliminary investigation suggests Ralph was driving a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup east on FM 2136 when he approached the Highway 6 intersection. He allegedly disregarded the stop sign and continued forward into the highway's southbound lane where the Dodge was hit by an oncoming Freightliner 18-wheeler.
Ralph was seriously injured in the collision. The Freightliner driver received possible injuries.
No further information is available at this time.
Commentary on Samuel Ralph Accident in Bosque County
Something I talk about a lot on this blog is how there's no such thing as an open-and-shut crash, at least as far as preliminary reports go. Some might wonder if that's true here since investigators say the victim ran a stop sign, which seems pretty cut-and-dried. I wasn't there and have no specific reason to doubt them, but at the same time a few sentences in the news and a cursory police examination of the scene don't account for every potential factor.
By suggesting there's still more work to do here, I'm only saying it's important to keep an open mind and properly investigate all the possibilities. Things really could boil down to something as simple as the victim running a stop sign, but what if his brakes failed or he had a sudden medical emergency? Did anything block the victim's view of the sign or the approaching big rig? Additionally, how fast was the southbound truck traveling? Did that driver have time or room to do something different and avoid the crash?
I'm not trying to overcomplicate things here, but people are sometimes quick to accept preliminary findings as gospel truth even though they're often far from the whole story. Only careful accident reconstruction could really say what happened here, but it's unclear if police have the time, tools, training, or inclination to do that. Making sure the investigators in charge consider all the possible factors, even less-likely ones, is crucial for ensuring the truth is found.
