‘Nothing was done to protect the public’
Parents of Warren man killed by pole truck say earlier crash should have tipped off state regulators
From left to right: Sissy Harper, Austin Johnson and Teri Stoffer huddle at the roadside memorial of Jeffrey Little, the 28-year-old Warren man who was killed Aug. 25 in a fatal accident involving a pole truck at the Highway 30 and Bennett Road intersection.
Darryl Swan / The South County Spotlight
An Oregon Department of Transportation investigation has uncovered little so far in the way of naming a single source as responsible for three pole-truck crashes within the last five months at the intersection of Highway 30 and Bennett Road.
But some themes are starting to emerge.
Among them are questions about the intersection’s basic geometry, training for pilot car drivers, highway speeds and the blunt fact that more people live and commute from south Columbia County to Portland than a decade ago.
“I think speed and geometry are the underlying issues here,” said Gregg Dal Ponte, administrator for the Oregon Department of Transportation Motor Carrier Division. “That has been my hunch all along.”
Computer modeling and analyses of the intersection will be presented at a public meeting between ODOT officials, law enforcement and trucking industry representatives in Portland today, Sept. 24. From there, Dal Ponte said he anticipates further action to prevent future crashes at the intersection.
Already ODOT has pushed through emergency statewide action, following a Sept. 12 crash, requiring trucks with a load overhang more than one-third of the wheelbase to employ a rear-trailing pilot car.
“I’m not comfortable that what we’ve come up with is the ultimate solution. It was a stop-gap action,” Dal Ponte said.
The Bennett Road turn-off is the primary inbound route to McCormick Piling and Lumber Co., where each of the deliveries was heading when the crashes occurred.
Fluke crashes?
Each crash has followed the same scenario: a pole truck hauling logs, some measuring 85 feet long, headed westbound on Highway 30 attempts to turn onto Bennett Road.
While there is a Highway 30 turning lane for the Bennett Road exit, the turn itself is a sharp, 90-degree angle. As the truck enters the turn, the pole load swings into the path of westbound highway traffic.
Some poles in McCormick’s yard measure 105 feet, though the pole trucks, each run by separate trucking companies, involved in the crashes had not exceeded permit limitations.
In each instance, a car or truck following the pole truck crashed into the swinging pole load.
On Aug. 25, the scenario led to the death of 28-year-old Jeffrey Little, who was a passenger in a pickup truck that crashed into the overhanging load of a pole truck.
Teri and David Stoffer, Jeffrey’s parents, say the earlier April crash should have tipped off state regulators that something was wrong.
“I think that was kind of pooh-poohed because of the age of the driver,” Dave said. Specifically, the April accident involved an elderly driver who crashed into the pole truck. Neither driver was found at fault and no citations were issued, and for the most part the crash slipped under the radar.
“Nothing was done to protect the public,” Teri said. “And more importantly to us, to protect Jeff.”
Dave has said that the fa mily has retained legal counsel to examine the sequence of events leading to Little’s death.
System questions raised
Other questions have climbed to the surface. Among them are concerns about the lack of training for Oregon’s pilot car drivers, and whether the $425 fine for noncompliance is stiff enough.
The pole truck involved in the crash that claimed Little’s life was using a pilot car. Witnesses have said that while the pilot car had been following the pole truck, it passed the truck to take the lead as the truck reached Bennett Road.
Dave and Teri think that was a mistake, one that could have been avoided with some training.
“All that car had to do was straddle the lane so that nobody else could come back there,” said Dave. Dave is a commercial truck driver for a Portland trucking company.
Other than requiring special equipment, Oregon’s pilot car drivers receive no special training for the job.
Washington pilot car drivers by comparison require a special license and must renew their certification every three years.
Dal Ponte said Oregon’s pilot car program has come under scrutiny following the crashes.
“We raised that question as well. Someone pointed out that not all pilot car operators are created equal,” he said. “We really need an astute pilot car operator. Someone who is not up to the task really isn’t going to do us any good.”
No prior record
There is no record of pole truck crashes at the intersection prior to the first one in April. Four months later, in August, a second one took place, resulting in the death of Jeffrey Little. And then, on Sept. 12, there was a third crash.
Last Friday, Ed Scrivner, ODOT Motor Carrier Division’s second in command, made an unannounced visit to McCormick Piling and Lumber Co. The company receives raw timber and strips it of bark for use as telephone poles or wood pilings at its site at 58144 Old Portland Road, and has been doing so since 1992.
Bob Nelson, a heavy equipment operator at the McCormick site, said lately business has been slow. Deliveries are down to one, maybe two per day, though during the busy season the company can receive up to 10 daily loads.
“When you do statistical analysis, you always look for the anomaly, but it doesn’t look like there is one here,” Scrivner said following the visit.
The change requiring the pilot car affected 3,400 long log, pole and piling permits, the same kind of permit held by each of the three drivers, from separate trucking companies, involved in the Bennett Road crashes.
ODOT issues the permit on an annual basis to trucking companies specializing in hauling logs and poles. If the load overhang is longer than one-half of the wheelbase, a one-time permit is required, and could include more in-depth route planning.