August 17, 2011
Oklahoma

Highway Patrol says semitrailer’s lost steering pin causes collision

stillwater NewsPress, www.stwnewspress.com 17 August 2011

STILLWATER, Okla. – GLENCOE – A trailer on a tractor-trailer crossed a center line and hit a vehicle when the trailer’s steering pin fell out, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

Timothy Crawford, 50, of Cleveland, was hauling a segment of a wind turbine on a 2008 Peterbilt truck. He was driving north on State Highway 108 near Yost Road when the pin in the trailer’s rear axle slipped out, Trooper Anthony Harper said in a report.

A driver following the truck let Crawford know that something fell off the trailer, and when Crawford tapped the truck’s brakes, the load swung over the center line and collided with a southbound truck driven by Jason Stierwalt, 35, of Pawnee, the OHP reported.

Stierwalt was taken by helicopter to St. Francis Medical Center in Tulsa. His condition could not be confirmed.

Crawford was not injured.

Although the swaying load caused the wreck, Harper said, a sample of Stierwalt’s blood will be sent to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for alcohol testing. The driver smelled of alcohol, according to an OHP report.

The tractor-trailer driver’s condition was “apparently normal,” OHP reports.

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/08/17/highway-patrol-says-semitrailers-lost-steering-pin-causes-collision/