DRIVERS BEWARE: You May Be Criminally Liable in a Crash

If you’ve been in trucking for a few years, you are probably well aware that prosecutors and juries are becoming more punitive and imposing lengthy prison sentences on drivers convicted of negligent homicide in truck crashes. In some cases, judges and juries want to make the guilty driver a public example. In other cases, states’ mandatory sentencing guidelines leave them no choice. The highly publicized case of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos is one example.

Aguilera-Mederos, driving a flatbed loaded with lumber supplies, was eastbound on Interstate 70 in the Colorado Rockies on April 25, 2019, when his brakes failed. Investigators said he had not pulled over to check his brakes before starting down the steep, winding road. He also ignored several runaway truck ramps where he could have stopped his truck.

Instead, Aguilera-Mederos kept on driving, coasting in neutral until he plowed into a backup of vehicles already stopped for another traffic incident near the town of Lakewood, Colorado, a Denver suburb. The momentum of the speeding truck started a chain-reaction wreck that caused several vehicles to burst into flames, killing four motorists and injuring six others.

At his October 2021 trial, Aguilera-Mederos was convicted of 27 counts, including six counts of vehicular homicide, six counts of first-degree assault, 10 counts of attempted first-degree assault, six counts of careless driving and one count of reckless driving. Jurors acquitted him of 15 additional counts of attempted first-degree assault. The judge, in sentencing him to 110 years in prison, asserted that he was bound by Colorado’s mandatory sentencing laws to this considerable sentence.

Aguilera-Mederos’ extraordinary sentence became an internet sensation, prompting nearly five million people to sign a Change.org petition calling for a reduced sentence. Celebrities also spoke out against the length of the sentence and called for it to be reduced. Many individual truck drivers took to social media urging their peers not to accept loads that would require them to travel through Colorado.

A hearing was set for January 13 to consider the district attorney’s request for the sentence to be reduced to 20 to 30 years. In the meantime, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis intervened shortly before the New Year holiday and reduced the sentence to 10 years.

This tragic incident provides several important learning opportunities for commercial truck drivers. First, driving on mountainous roads requires a higher level of skill and caution than on flat, straight stretches of highway (Houston-based Aguilera-Mederos reportedly had never driven on mountain roads). Secondly, drivers must do a thorough brake inspection before starting down steep grades. Drivers need to be sure they are familiar with basic control and operation procedures in mountainous states, to include gearing down to reduce speed and refraining from riding the brakes on downhill grades. Drivers also should make a note of the locations of any runaway truck ramps ahead.

A longtime industry driver and friend once told me that truck drivers will do almost anything to stay out of a runaway truck ramp. When I asked why, he said “because the escape ramps are generally covered in several inches of gravel and the gravel tears up the truck!” I asked him if that meant that some drivers are more concerned about damage to the truck than about getting into a crash. He responded that, unfortunately, such drivers will take a chance that they will be able to manage steep and winding grades without having to use escape ramps. In other words, they underestimate the challenges of mountain driving and overestimate their skills in managing such challenges.

We at ICSA are serious about our mission to improve highway safety. Most of us have spent our careers advocating for truck safety. Consequently, ICSA offers members regulatory information, safety training, and technology to help them operate more safely. ICSA Safety Consultant Mike Hitchcock continually reminds us that the most frequent – and most serious – SmartDrive alerts we see on a regular basis are speeding too fast for conditions and following too closely. This type of driving behavior is even more lethal on mountain roads. So slow down and back off from that vehicle ahead of you! And if your route takes you on mountain roads, check your brakes, reduce your speed and exercise extra caution.

Put yourself in Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s place. Even with a reduced prison term, his life will never be the same. The families of those killed in the I-70 crash are changed forever. One wonders what might have been had the driver taken the time to check his brakes, exercised much greater caution and reduced his speed as he was descending from the mountain pass and – yes – used a runaway truck ramp when he knew his brakes were failing.