Driver Injured in Semi-Truck Accident on U.S. 56 in Marion, KS
Marion County, KS — November 6, 2023, a driver was injured following a dual semi-truck accident at around 7:15 a.m. along U.S. Highway 56.
Authorities said in preliminary statements that the crash happened during foggy conditions at the junction with U.S. 56, U.S. 77, and Kansas Highway 150.
Officials say that a tractor-trailer was going through the roundabout at the time when a westbound semi-trailer allegedly failed to yield to the first truck. As a result, the vehicles collided. The driver of the first semi-truck was taken to a hospital with unspecified injuries. It appears no one else was hurt.
Fog can obviously cause serious issues for any driver, regardless of how experienced or trained they may be. That said, it's very rare fog suddenly comes out of nowhere, so most any professional driver should be able to compensate for the conditions appropriately. While there isn't much information about what all happened here, the fact authorities specifically accuse the second driver of failing to yield stands out to me.
I've talked a lot on this blog about how authorities sometimes talk about weather-related crashes as though they're simply unavoidable. That's rarely true. But when authorities bring up the inclement weather yet still accuse a driver of wrongdoing, it's often a sign they know something specific about a driver's actions that make them confident that the weather conditions were not as important a factor in a crash as whatever those actions were. I'm curious if authorities know about a specific mistake that led to this crash which makes the confident in blaming that driver.
