Around 10 a.m. on Monday morning this week, three 18-wheelers hauling cargo for the oil and gas industry (gravel and water for hydrofracking well sites) crashed into each other on State Highway 72, resulting in the deaths of two of the truckers and serious life-threatening injuries to a third.
A portion of State Highway 72 was closed for the entire workday, while investigators worked the scene and cleaning crews cleared the area. As Tim Delaney reports for Progress, investigators weren’t sure how the accident came to be.
Though the cause of the accident, at the time of Delaney’s report, was not known, what’s clear is all this 18-wheeler traffic is here to stay. As long as the Eagle Ford Shale oil boom continues – and oil and gas experts predict it will continue for years – there will be 18-wheelers traveling across South Texas hauling gravel and water. In fact, it takes scores of trips to create just one well site to conduct hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
Fracking is a method of drilling and extracting oil and natural gas through shale rock.
Not only can your average Texas motorist or passenger file a claim against a negligent truck driver, so can a truck driver him- or herself. This accident, for instance, claimed the lives of two truckers, while the third was seriously injured, and the accident appears to have been confined to truckers only.
Source: Two die in 18-wheeler collision