A carrier owner has been sentenced to jail time after one of his trucks was involved in an 4 vehicle accident that paralyzed an elderly man.
As a result of the accident, 63 year-old Richard Shaw fell into a coma and, once he regained consciousness, realized that he had lost the use of his legs. Now wheelchair bound, Shaw and his wife claim they continue to suffer and that “Our lives are no longer the same.”
The vehicle allegedly had a hazardous brake system, but had passed an inspection only four days prior to the accident. The driver of the vehicle also claimed that the rig didn’t have any problems when he did his pre-trip inspection the day of the crash.
Joshua Kovaschetz, the carrier owner, pled guilty to two counts of misdemeanor recklessly endangering another person and as part of the plea deal will pay a fine of $675 plus costs and serve 6 to 23 months in prison.
During sentencing, Kovaschetz stated that “I didn’t want to cause harm in any way and I take responsibility for what happened because I owned the truck.”
The driver of the truck was charged with careless driving, an out-of-service offense, and operating unsafe equipment. He pled guilty to the latter charge, the others were dropped, and he was issued a fine of $127.50.
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Source: insurancenews, dailyitem, newsitem
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You have to be kidding me!! $127 fine. That is crazy!! Should be way more. California fined me $239 for using lane 2 south of Grapevine
The whole thing has been taken as a joke by the Ralpho police department and the state of pennsylvania. It’s disgusting. My parents’ lives will never be the same.
I feel for anyone involved in an accident. Sometimes people lose their lives, or are critically injured. Some people have their lives changed forever by it. Human’s are not perfect and make dumb and sometimes fatal decisions. It will always happen that way no matter what we do or how much we try and prevent them. Regulations, rules, safety inspections and driver logs were all meant to guide us in keeping things as safe as possible. Do we sometimes ignores these things? Yes.
I personally believe a driver can only do so much to inspect his or her truck. Anymore then asking a motorist to inspect their car. Not everyone who drives a truck is a mechanic or knows what to look for.
I agree totally with you…
Every driver should know what to look for or be mechanically knowledgeable before they sit behind the drivers wheel.
So, what should the driver have found that would not have been found during the inspection 4 days earlier. I guess according to you, drivers need to be certified mechanics to have a CDL.
There was never an inspection 4 days before. It was a lie made up by the owner of the truck. It was stated in the paper that the owner submitted paperwork to prove it was inspected in Connecticut. He or his lawyer never submitted any paperwork. I know, I was there. And a day after he received his plea deal sentence, he appealed it……so much for taking responsibility.
I don’t get how the owner was responsible for the brake system if it passed an inspection days before. I’m sure there is alot more to this than we are seeing in the article?
AGREE….THE INSPECTOR SHOULD BE INVESTIGATED…..
We’re not getting the whole story. I would guess that he has is own shop that inspects their own trucks, making him liable. The inspector should get investigated as well. The ridiculously low fines tell me that there is a lot more to this story and some plea bargaining took place.
Feel free to ask me anything. I am the youngest daughter of Brenda and Richard Shaw. I will gladly tell you everything I know.
I didn’t hear anyone say what happened to the person that inspected the brakes. If the brakes were indeed faulty, then why was this person not questioned and put on trial? Don’t make sense to burn the owner and driver for what happened. They were going on what the mechanic told them
Misleading article name or not, the driver is responsible for making sure the equipment is safe to drive. I know lots of drivers and companies that are running equipment that won’t pass a Level 1 inspection. They hope they won’t get caught.. And are constantly pushing their luck. Because the name of the game is making money. Fixing equipment can cut into profits. That said I don’t think this article is complete.. I still want to see the proof that the driver was at fault. No one just gets thrown in jail without a trial.
What is misleading about the article name?
Well….you could be sentenced to jail without a trial if you plead guilty of the charges with sentence recommendation agreed and approved by the District Prosecutor.
The owner and the driver are two separate people. The driver was fined for only one offense out of three because they were going to have him testify against the owner when it came to court.
There is truly something missing in this story, Number one 75 percent of Drivers are not Mechanics and most mechanics are not Drivers. Many of the Major companies will not even let the Drivers carry a screwdriver to change a headlight. and most drivers and Company owners have no idea what makes the thing tick. So as mentioned above why was the person in charge of the inspection or the inspector charged. Just to let you know Most of the DOT Inspectors are not Mechanics Either nor are the Federal Inspectors. They are schooled in inspections and nothing else.
There won’t be a trial. Did you not read the part where it stated he took a plea deal….? It’s the owners own ignorance for taking a plea deal. The bottom line is, if a mechanic or shop inspected the truck, passed it and gave him the lil sticker to prove it, it’s their fault. There are other factor to consider but we would need to see more on this story.
Could be that the shop did a quick fix to pass him but possibly advised him of the possibility that the problem would return. If that was the case and the truck owner did not take appropriate measure to completely fix the truck, then yes, it would be the owners fault.
I see plenty of rag tag trucks on the road every day, I’m sure they wouldn’t pass any dot inspection. Maybe this is what’s it’s going to take to get the careless owners and drivers out of the industry. If you can’t afford to keep fuel in the truck or keep the truck maintained properly I would suggest you find something else to do for a living. Far too many half @$$, fly by night companies out there. They are the ones to blame for increased regulation and the root of the problem when it comes to highway safety.
I agree with most of your comment Dub, but for whatever reason, in my part of the world the “rag tag” trucks never get stopped!! Let an O/O show up with a clean truck and trailer and he’s gonna be on the side or around back.
The first self-drive 18 wheeler just hit the road today in Nevada. They still require someone sitting behind the wheel, but that will change in a few years. There are a lot of self-drive cars on the road now with no one inside.
They found 17 violations at the inspection in Connecticut. 4 days later the accident happened and those same 17 violations were present on the truck. They have never told the truth as to how the truck got back on the road and was able to be responsible for the accident in Pennsylvania.
So why aren’t owners and mechanics who fail to correct emissions issues charged with murder when a driver dies in their sleeper? I can tell you why . Interstate travel does not fall under OSHA’s jurisdiction. Companies lawyer up before bodies get home and requested test conveniently cancelled . Eventually the truth will come out. We need to stop bagging and tagging drivers. All trucks where a driver is deceased in their sleepers should be impounded and thoroughly inspected by DOT. Oh wait they don’t claim jurisdiction either if you are driving.
How did tha……..never mind. Yet one more reason to get out of this dead end cr@p.
California doesn’t do out of service if only one brake is bad. I had one that was bad on trailer. Because it was only 20% failure of the brakes they didn’t put me out of service just told me to get it fixed. They didn’t even give me or the company a ticket for it. I no longer work for that company as they were trying to get new to do some things illegally. I told the company about it and all the company said was drive it back up to the yard and we’ll get it serviced. As far as I know that trailer was scrapped after about another the weeks of being in service. DOT webmasters have the option of ticketing or not. Something’s like brakes or something that makes the truck unsafe to drive south’s be ticketed and shut down. Minor things like lights should at the very given a written warning.
I see way too many junk trucks on the road. They are dirt cheap and allow anyone who wants to be an owner/operator do so or any dimestore carrier put cheap drivers on the road.
I use to be leased on to such a carrier who’s owner and safety person also owned cheap pieces of junk they put company drivers in and ran them ragged all in the name of money. People were killed, hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, flagged for intervention 5 times, violations pages and pages long, yet they continue to operate.
Unlimited Freight out of the Chicago area.
This is just one example of such negligence and total disregard for the law that gets the green light to continue and by who?
Think about that one.
Mr. Kovaschetz has already been released from jail. Hasn’t even been 6 months. This man was responsible for damaging the quality of my parents’ lives, and the lives of 3 others that day. ( and many more could have been injured, or even killed ), ( and i’m sure he will continue to put the lives of others in danger, as he has quite an extensive history of breaking the law. )…….. I am extremely disappointed in the judicial system in Pennsylvania.
My wife and I were the ones in the accident. We do not fault all drivers…..in this case the driver was a terrible one and the owner was even worse. I have many truck driver friends that are proud of their profession. The whole story has not been told about this accident. There was an inspection 4 days before the accident and we do not know how the truck was able to be back on the road with the same 17 violations on the day of the crash as 4 days before. Believe me, I had my lawyer check into seeing if we could sue the inspection place or at least the one inspector…..that did not happen so that raises the suspicion as to how the truck was able to be on the road. The worst of the story is that the owner’s insurance had been cancelled 3 days before the accident but he still let his truck out on the road. The driver was a piece of shit high school dropout in the 10th grade who decided that he was going to be a professional truck driver…….instead he is a disgrace to all that are in that profession.