Fatal hit and run - help needed

If they were hit by the front of the truck at speed, the driver would definitely feel it. At parking lot speeds, probably not.
If they were hit by the trailer at any speed , driver wouldn’t notice a thing.
After the trip there may or may not be any damage to the truck or trailer depending on point of impact.
So yes it is entirely possible that the driver never noticed.

 

Theoretically, yes. Practically, no.

I knew a guy at Crete who ran over an overzealous Love’s employee in Norman, OK who was cleaning under parked trucks. He died. Other drivers flagged him down in the parking lot letting him know he’d run over someone. He had no idea. After a long investigation, the driver was cleared by the district attorney and kept his job.

That being said, drivers are going forwards 99% of the time and are looking forwards - they would see an obstruction and would notice if they hit something at 65 MPH.

Every truck is required to have electronic logs which give the time and place of where they stop. I’m not sure if/how that can be applied to moving trucks. I would Google “solved hit and run case tractor truck semi electronic logs” and find the specific detective by name and then call them.

 

As others have said, it's possible. Depending on time of day, speed, road conditions, where he was hit, and several other factors. As an example, a couple years ago there was a wreck here in MI. It was snowing heavily, and a car lost control and run under the rear bumper of a semitrailer in front of him. The semi drug the car about 30 miles before he was flagged down to stop. The driver did feel it he said, but it felt like the 100's of pot holes he had already driven over.

Yes and no. All trucks pretty much track location if for nothing else road taxes. This is all private data though, and as such not really available to data mine. Now if you find a possible truck, if there is enough evidence you might get a warrant for the data.

Depending on the truck and where hit there might have been a little blood, but the driver easily could think it was from an animal. Truck could have needed major body damage so there's no telling.

While I am sorry for your loss, and I do hope you find closure, I'm also afraid if it's already been months you should not get your hopes up.

 

Location is recorded every duty status change, every key on/off event, and every 60 minutes driving. Thing about the location data is it's only accurate to about a mile. It could be useful to narrow down potential trucks, but not accurate enough to state x truck was at y location at z time

 

Sounds as if the Original Poster didn’t have a time of death which would make that window of drivers pretty large indeed. My guess is that’s why the police are dragging their feet.

Condolences to the O.P. on the loss.

 

We do have a time of death and a probable direction the truck was heading. It’s a very isolated location as well so hoping that narrows things down. Just not exactly sure what information is out there for us to find.

 

Another problem is that it could be a regular route truck that takes that road daily/weekly/monthly or it could be an irregular route truck that just saw the road for the first time ever & may never travel that route again.

You could be in Michigan looking for a truck that has never ventured farther north than Georgia except for this one off load he ran for a good friend or customer.

There are just to many variables here for us to really help you.