TodayNegligence at issue in fatal 2006 crash in Lower Allen
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Article RatingIt has been more than two years since the Lower Allen Township crash that killed Samuel Maravich, but other drivers who were headed east on Route 581 about 5:15 p.m. on July 12, 2006, still remember it.
“It was stop-and-go traffic that day,” said Maurice Titus, a tractor-trailer driver from Harrisburg who didn’t have a trailer that day.
Traffic near the Interstate 83 split had reached a standstill, Titus said, and when he glanced into his rearview mirrors while stopping, he saw a tractor-trailer driven by Michael Dean Lash, 42, of Harrisburg.
“I could see that he’s going way too fast,” Titus said. “I kept looking back, looking back, waiting for the impact.”
He didn’t see it, he said, but he heard a crunch at the first impact and then more noises as the tractor-trailer hit other vehicles. Titus went back to check on Lash and the drivers of three vehicles who were hit, he said. They told him they were OK, but that the crash had pushed a red car over the concrete wall of the overpass and down onto Hummel Avenue.
The driver of that red car was Maravich, 58, of Steelton. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to Cumberland County Coroner Mike Norris, and he died at the scene of multiple traumatic injuries sustained in the crash.
Brake failure
Reports that Lash was driving too fast and the fact that five of the tractor and trailer’s 10 brakes were found to be not functional or not connected led prosecutors to charge him with homicide by vehicle and involuntary manslaughter, said Cumberland County Chief Deputy District Attorney Michelle Sibert.
“This case is a prime example of why there are rules of the road,” Sibert said, noting that there are special rules for tractor-trailer drivers “to keep other drivers safe.”
Regulations require truckers to check their rigs before and after each trip, Sibert said: “Either the defendant ignored them, or he didn’t do a very good job of checking them.”
Both options speak to the essential question of the case, Sibert told the jury, explaining that the charges in question do not require a finding that an action was planned – just that there was reckless or grossly negligent conduct.
Lash’s attorney, Shane Kope, said Lash was not speeding and had not experienced any previous brake problems. Log books show he had performed the necessary checks. Furthermore, Kope said, the vehicle Lash was driving had passed inspection just two months earlier.
“He did everything he was supposed to,” Kope said. “In spite of his best efforts, somebody died.”
“If you do not believe it because of his concern for his fellow man, you should believe it on his concern for his own safety,” Kope said.
‘A pinball machine’
“He said he hit his brakes and they locked up and the truck stalled,” testified Trooper Christopher Erdman of the Pennsylvania State Police at Harrisburg.
Police measured 123 feet and 7 inches of skid marks, Erdman said.
As other witnesses reported, Erdman said, Lash recounted that he tried to avoid hitting vehicles once he realized the brakes weren’t working fast enough.
“He said at that point it was like a pinball machine,” Erdman said.
Lash made a written statement about what happened, Erdman said, reporting that he had been traveling 63 to 65 mph when he hit a rise in the road and then saw that traffic was slowing. The tractor-trailer weighed about 77,000 pounds, Lash said.
The speed limit on that portion of Route 581 is 55 mph, Erdman said.
Testimony in the case will resume before Cumberland County President Judge Edgar Bayley Wednesday. The courthouse is closed today in observance of Veterans Day.
