A Democrat in Kansas who voted against transgender people lost the primary race.
A woman from Tennessee and a woman from Colorado died in a crash on Interstate 70 on Monday. The driver of a tractor-trailer is being charged with multiple crimes.
Two counts of first-degree involuntary manslaughter, one count of second-degree assault, and one count of driving with a license that has been canceled or suspended (first offense) have been brought against Walter J. Montejo of South Gate, California.
He was taken to a nearby hospital by paramedics with minor injuries from the crash, but as of Thursday morning, he was still being held at the Boone County Jail. He is being held without a bond. As of Thursday morning, there was no date set for a court session.
Montejo was driving west on I-70 in the passing lane near the Business Loop 70 exit when he reportedly lost control of his vehicle and crossed into the driving lane, hitting a BMW Z3 that went out of control and off the right side of the road. The driver of the BMW and any injuries they may have had were not named.
According to comments made by witnesses to police, Montejo’s car quickly moved to the left and hit the concrete barrier in the middle of the road between the eastbound and westbound lanes.
When the tractor-trailer went over the barrier and into the northbound lanes, it hit a Toyota Highlander and the car lost control. In court papers, information about the driver and the injury was not written down. Also hit was a Dodge Ram 1500 truck going east, which launched into the air and flipped over. The driver of that car, who has not been named, was seriously hurt. After that, the tractor-trailer hit a Ford Explorer, badly damaging the car. The driver’s state is unknown.
After all of this, the tractor-trailer crashed into a U-Haul rental truck that was being driven by 54-year-old Cindy Helms from Rockwood, Tennessee. It was reported to the court and Columbia police that she was taken to a nearby hospital but died there. She was a passenger in the U-Haul and was 84 years old from Broomfield, Colorado. She died at the scene of the accident. The next of kin were told.
It was written that Montejo’s license was taken away because of “an active administrative alcohol suspension.”
The Whitley Law Firm, a personal injury law firm in North Carolina, says that the number of fatal truck crashes in Missouri rose by about 77% from 2013 to 2022. The company looked at how many truck accidents killed people in each state and then ranked them by which states had the biggest jumps. Missouri comes in at number 10, while Alaska saw the biggest growth over the past 10 years, with a 166% rise.
Some Missouri truck accidents may have been caused by the state’s varied landscape, which includes flat fields and the Ozark Mountains. This can be especially difficult for truck drivers during bad weather.
The company says that specific actions are needed that go “beyond existing restrictions like hours-of-service regulations and vehicle weight limits,” a company representative said. “To stop this worrying trend, we need to invest in infrastructure, train drivers, and make the rules stricter all at the same time. It’s a complicated issue.”
The company got the data by using the U.S. Department of Transportation’s death and injury reporting system, which is part of the department’s network for getting crash data.