Trucker on Facebook at time of deadly Arizona crash, records show

The most major is 2nd degree murder and 20 other felony charges.

 

The article stated Espinoza is "being charged with second-degree murder and other crimes". Life as he knew it is over.

 

All because of Facebook status updates (shaking head)

 

The punishment for second degree murder in Arizona is "Not less than 10 years nor more than 25 years"

I would say you are correct Lepton.

 

I will say this.. there is no way to prevent every single threat/danger to any trooper or emergency crew, especially every threat/danger that is far from the norm, as traffic goes.
To say a safer option for the trooper is to "have either parked a larger, heavier vehicle there, OR parked it about a mile further back from the scene" is not taking into consideration a "real life" possible non-rapid deployment or availability issue on the 1st part, and the 2nd proposed option is just plain ridiculous.
To park a mile further back, instead of where he was, would allow all traffic a huge amount of time & distance to continue as before, filling both lanes, and wonder what he was even doing back there. That's like breaking down, and setting your triangles out... 1 mile behind you. Jeeze!

Most all of these emergency settings are far less than ideal. This particular scene actually was one of the more ideal settings, clear open road, no curves, straight 2-lane highway on a clear sunny day, with bright white road/lane markings. Not many emergency settings come even close.
A law enforcement officer's job requires much higher risk factor than any other "first responder" (fire dept, EMT's, ambulance, etc). It always has.
A law enforcement officer cannot always back-off or wait until the scene is "totally safe for himself and others", as compared to other first responders, who do have that option and trained to do so. But I also realize it won't sink in with some ppl, unless they actually had experience working that side, at emergency scenes.

This was ideal advanced-viewing conditions for the truck driver, as well as unobstructed viewing of the emergency vehicles, whether in the traffic lane, or shoulder.
The emergency vehicles are not obligated in any way, to be "on the ready" to vacate or scramble to avoid an unexpected inattentive driver.
They are to focus their attention solely on handling whatever emergency it is, and it ridiculous to think that they should be on "alert" to every approaching vehicle.
That would make it impossible to focus their attention at all, on the emergency at hand. It's also ridiculous to think they'd even stand a chance of scrambling from a 70 mph truck barreling down on them, at close distance.

That's the purpose of the trooper's vehicle, with flashers lit, to provide a safety barrier for the crew ahead.
Yes, ideally, they can have bar lights, 2 troopers spaced in advance, and traffic cones for 1/2 mile ahead.
But often time & location does not permit such luxuries.

However, in this fatal collision ("accident" is a misnomer) it's highly doubtful the truck driver would have even noticed flashing bar lights, flashing neon signs, or even an neon elephant in the roadway.

 

Lets cut through a little crap, shall we? When you are behind the wheel of your truck and you hit a parked state state trooper with his lights on you are at fault, especialy considering that he was on an mostly empty highway with light traffic. If he would not have been effing around on his phone he would have been watching what he was doing and have had PLENTY of time to, change lanes, reduce speed and hit his four ways with no danger to any involved at all. He is at fault, 100%, and nothing that the trooper did or did not do can even come close to exscusing that idiots actions that day. This story breaks my heart, The poor family, their loss, their pain. This driver is scum, plain and simple, and should be executed. This one incident proves to me that all the measures taken by the fmcsa and other agencys are justified, because of morons like this. Yes the good drivers like us pay the price but what else is to be done. I don't know whether to cry for that troopers family or scream in anger over that idiot.
B

 

in our country this kind of crash is impossible

 

Five trucks would of hit him in your country!

 

Let's not post the 12,837 YouTube videos to prove Pablo wrong.

 

Just can't watch that video without being a bit sick. Thank God he wasn't loaded. Would be nice for long duration accident scenes if they could get a highway dept dump truck or something with more "stopping power" out there to block traffic.