Lack of Oversight Led to Fatal 2014 Crash: Safety Board

The National Transportation Safety Board has found that a January 2014 crash that killed one person and severely injured two others was caused by driver fatigue and a lack of oversight regarding high-risk trucking companies.

The crash occurred at around 9:20 p.m. Jan. 27, 2014. Renato Velasquez, the driver of the DND International truck, crashed into multiple vehicles in the eastbound lane of I-88 near Eola Road in Aurora. The vehicles were providing assistance to a disabled 2000 Volvo semitrailer, owned by Michael’s Cartage, Inc.

An Illinois Tollway worker operating an assistance truck died, and an Oswego Illinois State Police trooper was seriously injured, as was Velasquez. The driver of the disabled truck received minor injuries.

The NTSB said Velasquez had slept less than five hours in the past 37 hour period before the crash.

“His fatigue is evidenced by his failure to see the stopped and lighted vehicles in the lane ahead of him on the night of the crash until immediately before he struck them, which limited his ability to take effective action to avoid the crash,” the NTSB said in its report.

They also claim Velasquez had falsified his logbook.

Both trucking companies, DND International and Michael’s Cartage, had been classified as high-risk carriers, with “longstanding records of operating unsafely,” the NTSB said. Despite this, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration “did not take effective action to keep either carrier from operating unsafely.”

The NTSB also said the driver of the disabled vehicle routinely “falsified his logbook entries and had a history of logbook falsification above the critical level.”

The board recommended a notification program that automatically sends a letter to any motor carrier labeled as “high risk,” as well as to the carrier’s insurance provider.

The board also recommended forming a group of safety partners to determine ways to best share information about unsafe carriers and making them take remedial action, suspending operations of any carrier that has five or more intervention alerts and reviewing the process and procedures for imminent hazard orders.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration spokesman Duane DeBruyne told the Chicago Sun-Times “the agency would cooperate with the NTSB and address the recommendations.”