traffic safety
Safety Exemptions For Livestock Haulers Raise Concerns For Others On The Road
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It was sometime around 4 a.m. on a cool spring morning when James McGilvray lost control of his semi, careening into a ravine off Interstate 49 in Harrisonville, Missouri. His trailer, which carried between 80 and 100 cattle, according to police records, flipped on its side as the truck plowed to a halt. The crash killed roughly half the livestock onboard, with the other half escaping onto the highway where state and city law enforcement spent the next four hours shutting down traffic in order to corral the remaining herd. McGilvray, who was 48 at the time of the crash, blamed another car for causing the wreck, according to the crash report, despite officers marking no evidence for another vehicle’s involvement. Rather, 45-year-old Stacy Ball, who was traveling with McGilvray and was in the sleeper cabin changing when the crash occurred, believes McGilvray fell asleep at the wheel. On the crash report, Ball told officers that McGilvray had run off the road twice the previous night and “had been driving ‘non-stop’ for 2-3 months between Mississippi and Florida.” She also informed officers that McGilvray had been pushing himself to prove to his current employers that despite his age, he was still fit to drive the long, hard hours commonly associated with the trucking industry.