Inattentive Truck Driver Causes Multivehicle Truck Accident

An inattentive truck driver caused a four vehicle Columbia Missouri truck accident when she failed to notice slowed traffic. The Boone County Missouri tractor trailer accident, which injured five people from Columbia, occurred on June 1, 2011 at 4:05pm.

Truck driver Pearl T. Anderson of Pine Bluff, Arkansas failed to notice that traffic on US-63 was slowing because of another accident on the roadway. When Anderson noticed the traffic, she swerved a 2009 Frieightliner and struck three passenger vehicles. First, the tractor trailer struck a 2000 Chevrolet driven by Gilberto M. Rodriguez. The tractor trailer then crashed into a 2000 Buick driven by Janice M. Palmer. The tractor trailer slammed into the rear of a 1997 Mercury driven by Amber K. Splitter. After striking the three passenger vehicles, the tractor trailer drove off the left side of the roadway and lost its load of rebar.

The tractor trailer totaled all three passenger vehicles and injured six people. The forces of the collisions pushed all three passenger vehicles off the left side of the roadway. A passenger in the Chevrolet and the driver of the Buick became entrapped in their vehicles.

Five Columbia residents were injured in the Boone County Missouri truck accident, including 1-year-old Latavia L. Franklin. Janice Palmer, 62, suffered the most severe injuries in the accidents. The other injured Columbians were Lylvester Franklin, 25, Amber Splitter, 30, and Marybell Garcia, 32. The truck driver, the only non-Missourian involved in the accident, sustained minor injuries.

Missouri distracted driving is the number one contributing factor to accidents. Cell phone use and texting while driving are popular examples of distracted driving, but any activity that takes attention away from the road contributes to distracted driving. Eating, applying makeup, using a GPS device, and looking at a nearby car accident decrease the amount of brain power used to safely operate a vehicle. Directing attention to another activity while driving for even a moment is dangerous because road conditions change quickly. For example, fast-moving highway traffic may suddenly slow because of an obstruction