A Livingston man was life-flighted to a Tyler hospital with critical injuries after an accident involving one car and four 18-wheelers, two of which ran into the side of a home. The accident took place in Corrigan on Monday afternoon, according to the Lufkin Daily News.

The driver of the car was the sole occupant of the vehicle. One of the truck drivers, a 26-year-old man from El Paso, was transported to a hospital with minor injuries. None of the other truck drivers were injured.

There was only minimal damage done to the house that was struck, and none of the occupants of the home were injured. One of the drivers of the 18-wheelers, a 31-year-old man from Texas City, was cited for failure to control speed.

Authorities believe that one of the 18-wheelers struck another 18-wheeler, creating a domino effect.

U.S. Highway 59 north and south were temporarily shut down while the Corrigan Police Department, the Texas Highway Patrol, the Polk County Sheriff’s office, and TxDot assisted on scene.

Late Monday, the Livingston man injured in the accident was listed in critical condition at East Texas Medical Center Tyler.

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On January 17 at 7:30 a.m. on Farm-to-Market Road 93, a tractor-trailer clipped a school bus full of students and flipped it onto its side on the southeastern outskirts of Temple, Texas, about 60 miles northeast of Austin, reports the Insurance Journal.

Thirty-two people went to the hospital; 29 of them were children. A 9-year-old boy was ejected through the escape hatch in the bus roof. The bus driver was knocked unconscious, police said.

A trooper from the Texas Department of Public Safety said a hardware truck apparently ran a stop sign when it hit the Academy school district bus. Conditions were foggy, but it was unclear whether that factored into the crash, he said.

Three of the 29 children being treated were admitted to the hospital, one in critical condition. The other 26 children were discharged, said a spokeswoman for the Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple.

The Academy school superintendent said that the three injured children were expected to recover, although “they all face a long road” to recovery.

The bus driver also was listed in critical condition, but both of the other adults, including the truck driver, were treated and discharged, he said.

Counselors were available for students at the Academy schools on Wednesday.

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Fog and smoky conditions in Southeast Texas, near Port Arthur, caused dozens of vehicles to pile up in a major wreck early Thursday morning, reports Fox News.

Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Rod Carroll said that at least 10 ambulances were dispatched to the scene on Highway 73, just west of Port Arthur.

He stated that “multiple” people were injured in the string of accidents, involving as many as 40 vehicles.

“The accidents were caused by poor visibility due to a mixture of fog and smoke from march wildfires,” said Carroll.

In parts of Jefferson County, fires have recently swept through some dry marshlands.

Fox News also reported that life-flight helicopters were dispatched to the scene.

The highway was closed down completely shortly after 6 a.m. between Winnie and the Taylors Bayou Bridge, the Houston Chronicle reports. Traffic was left at a standstill for several hours.

No one was killed, but at least 54 people were injured–four of them critically–according to investigators.

What was reported as a wreck at 5:36 a.m. actually involved more than 50 vehicles in a series of accidents along the eastbound lanes of the highway in the area of the Veolia Processing Plant.

Drivers should use Interstate 10, FM 365, or Texas 124 as alternate routes, advises the Department of Transportation.

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An Texas A&M University football player died three days before Christmas in an auto accident, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The 22-year-old senior backup offensive lineman swerved to avoid a buzzard and hit an 18-wheeler head-on near the town of Norangee on FM 39, about 40 miles from College Station.

The driver of the 18-wheeler was not hurt, KBTX-TV reported.

The football team had practiced earlier that day, December 22,  for the final time before breaking for Christmas. The team played in Houston for the Meineke Car Care Bowl, which pitted the Aggies against Northwestern on New Year’s Eve.

“We lost a great brother,” A&M senior safety posted on his Twitter account. “Crazy to think we just saw him earlier (Thursday).”

The young man is survived by his mother, his father, and his sister.

Former A&M footballcoach Mike Sherman said, “He was one of the most respectful and high-character players I’ve ever coached. It was an honor and privilege to have known him and coached him.”

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Two recent vehicle crashes into apartments in Bryan College Station, Texas, drive home the dangers of driving while intoxicated., according to KBTX.

A 53-year-old woman crashed her car into the brick wall of the apartment where she lives off Longmire in College Station.

The resident whose apartment she hit said, “I heard squealing tires…I could tell like, a car had hit something.”

“I couldn’t believe it and then I saw what had happened and I was like, I cannot…this is insane, it’s crazy,” she added.

The driver admitted to police that she had taken a prescribed muscle relaxer and had drunk two glasses of wine before crashing into the building.

In another incident, a 21-year-old man is charged with intoxicated assault after using hallucinogenic mushrooms and crashing his pickup into a unit at the West University Garden Apartments. This accident sent one resident to the hospital.

Dr. Clint Cheng, with St. Joseph Health System, said, “It’s becoming more of a problem because I think people are losing respect for medications and their potential side effects.”

“You’re not going to realize that you are not capable of driving or operating heavy machinery or in some cases, even walking,” added Cheng.

Both suspects have previous DWI charges.

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Two people were killed this past summer in a Fort Worth, Texas, rear-in accident with a large tractor trailer on westbound Interstate 30, reports the Digital Journal.

The truck was proceeding slowly in the right lane when the car crashed into it from behind. The impact was so severe that the car became wedged underneath the truck. First responders had to dismantle the car in order to remove the bodies of its occupants. The truck driver was not injured.

Fatal truck accidents like this one demonstrate how much damage can be done when a car rear-ends a tractor trailer. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, approximately 730 people are killed in rear-end accidents with tractor trailer in the United States each year. Another 4,000 suffer incapacitating injuries.

The typical fully-loaded tractor trailer weighs 20 times more than a standard passenger vehicle. A car that strikes the back of a tractor trailer will absorb nearly all of the energy from the crash and has a significant probability of becoming mangled underneath the truck.

Alcohol also plays a pronounced role in rear-end truck accidents. In accidents where a truck is rear-ended, the other driver is intoxicated over 21 percent of the time.

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Near downtown Houston, a big-rig lost control Tuesday morning around 3 a.m., according to KHOU News. The rig slammed into the freeway divider on I-10, scattering debris and fuel across the highway.

The engine was thrown from the truck on impact. It landed in the middle of the freeway, and the fuel tank caught fire.

Inside the cab, one person was driving while another was sleeping. The cab ended up by the center highway divider.

Houston Fire Department Captain Chris Jouett said, “It’s amazing that they both survived. Very lucky, very lucky. The damage is very catastrophic, but if you would have seen inside the cab, there wasn’t any room to move in there.”

Both people from the truck were in stable condition as they were transported to the hospital.

Initially, both lanes of I-10 near Taylor were shut down. The west side reopened around 5 a.m. and the inbound lanes were reopened by 7:30 a.m. By then rush hour traffic was back to normal.

Authorities are still trying to determine what led to the crash. They said that it may have been weather-related due to early-morning rain showers.

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Joan Claybrook, a member of the Public Citizen board, a consumer watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., said that companies pay truck drivers by the mile instead of by the hour, so they typically drive as far and as fast as they can. Some drivers are forced to work 14-hour days.

Most companies do not pay overtime nor do they pay the drivers for loading and unloading the cargo. “All the incentives are built to work these drivers to death,” she said.

Citing National Transportation Safety Board figures, Claybrook said that between 30 percent and 40 percent of truck accidents are caused by fatigue.

Claybrook said that drivers often keep two log books, one for their paycheck and the other to show law enforcement.

“If they crash, the first thing you see is the driver throwing the books out the window,” she said.

Department of Public Safety Major David Palmer said most truck and bus companies are obeying safe practices.

“I can think of a lot of carriers out there working hard to do the right thing and follow all the rules, but you are always going to have folks who try to shortcut the system,” he said.

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This year Texas inspectors pulled 20 percent of commercial vehicles, including 18-wheelers and public buses, off the road because they were deemed a potential danger to untold numbers of drivers and passengers, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Statistics on percentage of fatal crashes involving commercial vehicles since 2006 have gone from 8.92 percent in 2006 up to 15.96 percent in 2010.

The Department of Public Safety (DPS) said that 66,189 commercial vehicles inspected since January were found to be unsafe. Inspectors also removed 12,301 commercial drivers from the road for safety violations.

“Commercial vehicles are responsible for approximately 15 percent of the fatalities in Texas crashes,” Steven McCraw, DPS director, said. “Those who choose to drive unsafe commercial vehicles or drive a commercial vehicle unsafely pose a serious threat to the motoring public.”

“I consider 20 percent a very large number,” said Joan Claybrook, a member of the Public Citizen board. “If 20 percent of airplanes were put out of service in the United States, do you think anybody would travel by air?”

DPS spokeswoman Lisa Block said the most common violations by drivers were failing to properly log their hours and driver’s license problems. The most common mechanical problems were with brakes, tires, and lights, she said.

In our next blog, you will read about how the long hours that truck drivers are working add to accidents. Check back on Wednesday.

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In Montgomery County, a collision between a van and a pickup truck  last Friday killed two people and injured three others, according to the Houston Chronicle.

At about noon, a white Toyota van was southbound on Fostoria.  It stopped at a stop sign at the intersection and then proceeded into the intersection, failing to yield the right-of-way to a red 1997 Ford F-150 pickup truck pulling a gooseneck trailer and traveling west on Highway 105, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said.

The truck driven by a 67-year-old Cleveland man T-boned the van.

The driver of the van, a 34-year-old man, and one of his passengers, a 38-year-old Houston woman, were pronounced dead at the scene, and their bodies were taken to the Montgomery County Forensic Center in Conroe for autopsy, DPS officials said.

Two other passengers in the van, a 34-year-old woman and a three-year-old girl, both from Cleveland, were transported by air medical helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital-Texas Medical Center in serious to critical condition, officials said. The woman suffered broken bones and internal injuries, and the child suffered broken bones and head trauma.

The driver of the pickup truck was also flown to Memorial Hermann Hospital in serious condition. He suffered broken bones.

The accident is still under investigation, DPS officials stated.

The drivers and passengers in both vehicles were all wearing seatbelts, officials said.

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