Why did this ambulance crash into a Tennessee State Highway truck?

An interesting scenario unfolded on the highway breakdown lane just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. An ambulance using the breakdown lane crashed into a state highway work truck killing two people. As reported, the run wasn’t for an emergency. The trip was to return a woman to a nursing home after undergoing dialysis. Allegedly, both the driver and patient died. The truck was painted florescent green. The ambulance was privately operated. The collision occurred on October 22, 2009 in the afternoon, although the AP report doesn’t say what time.

So what happened? What caused the ambulance driver to not be aware that a large Tennessee State Highway Truck was parked or obstructing the break-down lane? What was the driver looking at or what distracted him from looking at what was clearly in front of him? Was the truck clearly in front of him or did it move into the lane ahead of him without sufficient time to stop? Like pilots missing the runway in Minneapolis, the driver has a lot of explaining to do.

Remember Joe Crumley’s post about the pilot and copilots from Northwest over flying the airport and ending up over Wisconsin? Common everyday citizens have to be wondering what is going on out there? And we wonder why there are so many lawsuits? Give me a break; there are fewer lawsuits than there are accidents and injuries, that’s for sure. But there are far too many people doing dumb things while they are driving cars, trucks, motorcycles or even planes, commuter buses and trains.

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Compare that situation with the situation in California where the train engineer was texting while performing his job and causing a horrendous crash.

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So looking back to the ambulance driver, there are questions needing answers. Was he negligent or are there facts that excuse or explain his conduct of not seeing that which we assume was clearly in his view.

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