Driver Says Highway 169 Accident Not His Fault

A truck driver involved in a major traffic wreck this week is now out of the hospital. He wants people to know the accident was not his fault. 

The News On 6's Jeffrey Smith reports a collision between a cement mixer and an asphalt truck shut down Highway 169 on Monday for four hours and sent both drivers to the emergency room.

The cement driver says he's lucky to have escaped with his life and the accident could have been prevented.

"It's a scary feeling cause according to the doctors and the paramedics and the firemen, they said I should be dead," said Shanon Beavers.

Beavers was driving in the middle lane of Highway 169 Monday afternoon. That's when he says all the cars around him began braking or swerving.

"This red Honda came out from behind me, got in front of me and was so close to me I could not see his back windshield," said Beavers.

Beavers hit the brakes, but he was carrying a full load of cement. He tipped over and skidded into a CPI Service repair truck.

"I feel in my heart if they woulda had the adequate, proper signs up, none of this would have happened," said Beavers.  "They had no advance warning signs out; they had no advanced barricades up, reduced speeds signs ahead, anything of that nature."

A spokesperson for CPI told The News On 6 that there was plenty of advanced warning. That the repair work was being done on the shoulder of the road, not in the middle of the highway and that the truck had a big flashing sign on top to warn drivers for hundreds of yards behind, but Beavers says he couldn't see it.

"Anybody who works on the highway, barricades up as far as the eye could see. Miles, warning signs, miles and here they come out here and they have people running into traffic and they don't have no warning," said Beavers.

No one was seriously hurt, but Beavers calls himself a lucky man.

Beavers was ticketed for conditions affecting speed. Basically, police say he ended up on the shoulder because he was driving too fast to begin with.

Beavers says he only tipped over because other drivers were swerving into his lane to avoid the asphalt truck.

Related story:

6/2/2008  Cement Truck Involved In Accident