Jason Lee Hard, 1 Injured in Truck Accident in Liberty County, TX
Liberty County, TX -- December 31, 2022, Jason Lee Hard and a passenger were injured due to an accident where a pickup and a semi collided.
Initial details given by authorities said that the crash happened at around 6:45 a.m. along Highway 321 in the area of Prison Road.
28-year-old Jason Lee Hard was said to be the driver of a Chevy Silverado traveling southbound along the highway. From northbound lanes, it appears an 18-wheeler failed to yield making a left turn, and the vehicles collided.
Due to the crash, both Hard and a passenger in his vehicle had incapacitating injuries. The truck driver wasn't hurt and was apparently cited for the crash.
I've dealt with hundreds of commercial vehicle wrecks over the years, and still stories like the one I'm seeing here never cease to baffle me. Truck drivers are expected to be careful, well trained, and capable of operating dozens of tons such that no one gets hurt. I know this especially because I've known many truckers who rose above and beyond those expectations. So how in the world does a truck driver fail to do something as basic as making a turn without going directly into the path of oncoming traffic? Maybe this is some one-in-a-million situation the truck driver couldn't avoid, but my experience tells me it's more likely the evidence will show this all happened due to a stupid, easily avoidable mistake.
Was the driver on their phone? Speeding? Fatigued? Driving equipment their employer doesn't maintain properly? Handling a vehicle they weren't properly trained to operate? Believe it or not, these different answers can sometimes have drastically different implications for the victims and families, which is why it's important to make sure the investigators handling things are asking those questions and ensuring nothing important slips through the cracks.
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