63 Tickets
Last January there were 193 vehicles involved in a sequence of chain reaction accidents near Kalamazoo 
Michigan. Jean Larocque died. He was a professional driver. Michigan State Police have issued 63 tickets following the accident. 58 were moving violations. 4 were for lack of insurance. 1 driver did not have a current license. Of those tickets, 30 truckers were ticketed. Again most importantly, one man died.
Mass ticketing is something that I had not heard of before. Some people are crying foul. Some are saying that it is about time that drivers get ticketed for these types of accidents. Any accident of this size can not be simplified. Many factors were involved. It is basically a string of small accidents. It started out on the eastbound side. It spread to the west bound side. It was a total mess.
The Michigan State Police were left to try to analyze what happened. They interviewed witnesses. An interesting approach was to use aerial pictures. For instance, they could see if you got your vehicle stopped safely you probably would not be issued a ticket. If you ran into the back of a stopped vehicle, you were driving too fast for conditions. Weather was a factor. Truck parking may have been a factor. There is a stretch from the 30 mile marker to the 104 mile marker with not enough truck parking. If truckers wanted to get off the road, could they?
I have crossed this section of highway over 1,000 times. It is never good. Between 2008-2012 there were more than 850 crashes reported between mile markers 81-88. That is a problem. It is a busy corridor. This particular accident occurred on I94 between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. I94 is also the main route between Chicago, Detroit and beyond in both directions. It is between routes US131 and I 69. It is an incredible busy section of interstate.
The idea is to prevent accidents like this from happening. There were several factors. Weather can happen fast in the great lakes region. Truckers need to be warned as soon as possible. There is better than a 60 mile stretch of interstate with inadequate truck parking. Even if truckers knew of the impending weather, they may not have had a safe place to park. That does not excuse drivers from driving too fast for conditions. If you can not safely stop your vehicle when you see trouble you are driving too fast.
Drivers have always been pressured to get the load there on time. Lately, pressure has been building for drivers to shut down in adverse weather conditions. Electronic logging makes it a waste of valuable driving time. Some companies are starting to pay drivers when we make the decision to shut down. Tickets are another way of pressuring drivers into making the decision to shut it down in bad weather. In this case even if drivers wanted to shut down, they may not have been able to. There would not have been enough parking.