According to Insurance News Net, the owner of a Pennsylvania trucking company will spend 6 to 23 months in jail for allowing a truck with a “hazardous braking system” to be on the road after the truck was involved in a 4-vehicle crash that left a man in a wheelchair.
The trucking company owner, Joshua S. Kovaschetz, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of recklessly endangering another person. He was sentenced to three to eleven and a half months for each count.
On March 25, 2015, truck driver David P. McGuinn was driving a truck owned by Kovaschetz’s company when he was involved in a collision on Route 54 in Ralpho Township in Pennsylvania. The truck rear ended Richard Shaw’s Mustang. The impact from the collision, sent Shaw’s Mustang into the oncoming lane, where it hit a Toyota Prius head-on. The Prius was then rear ended by another vehicle.
Shaw was left partially paralyzed, and his wife was also seriously injured in the crash.
The Prius driver, his wife and son were injured in the collision, as well.
An attorney for the case said Kovaschetz “relied too much on McGuinn and the Travel Center of America in Willington, Conn., when it came to checking on the condition of the truck prior to the accident,” Insurance News Net reported.
Just four days prior to the accident, the truck had undergone and passed an inspection.
The truck driver, David P. McGuinn, was also charged with three offenses: operating unsafe equipment, carless driving and an OOS charge. McGuinn pleaded guilty to the charge of operating unsafe equipment and was issued a fine of $127.50. The other charges were dropped.
In addition to the prison sentence, Kovaschetz said he “lost everything,” including his trucking company because of the accident.
Kovaschetz is scheduled to begin serving his time on April 27, 2015.
Sources:
Insurance News Net
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