A deadly late-night crash on Interstate 35 in North Austin that killed five people has sparked a federal investigation into the safety of highway construction zones and the qualifications of the truck driver involved.
Austin police said a semi-truck driver was intoxicated when he crashed into cars backed up by overnight construction work, where three main lanes had been reduced to one for repaving Thursday night. Solomun Weldekeal Araya, 37, is in jail and facing seven felony charges.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is doing an extensive on-site investigation expected to last up to 10 days. Investigators are closely reviewing the construction site's safety protocols, and examining Araya's background, as well as the practices of his employer, ZBN Transport.
The company — based in Fate, Texas outside Dallas — had been hauling loads for Amazon.
"Our mission is to understand not just what happened, but how it happened, and to recommend changes to prevent it from happening again," NTSB investigator Kenny Bragg said.
A preliminary report is due in about a month, but the NTSB's final report and recommendations from the investigation could take 12 to 24 months.
"We'll also be looking into the truck driver's employment history as a commercial driver, his entire driving history to include crash history and traffic violations, as well as his medical history for factors that may have influenced his driving," he said.
The construction being done Thursday night just north of Parmer Lane had been part of the I-35 Capital Express Project — the largest highway expansion in Austin history, which is broken into three parts: North, Central and South. The highway expansion is expected to continue till 2033.
"TxDOT reviews all fatal crashes to determine whether safety enhancements are needed," spokesperson Brad Wheelis said in a statement.
Wheelis confirmed that traffic bottlenecks and queuing are a frequent result of temporary lane reductions, which are typically scheduled overnight.
"One thing that comes to mind is the queue warning systems," said David K. Hale, a civil engineer with the Reston, Virginia-based research company Leidos.
Queue warning systems give drivers advance notice that traffic is slowed ahead.
"When bottlenecks have a tendency to form, some transportation agencies will deploy queue warning to reduce the likelihood of such incidents," said Hale, who has done research into bottlenecks for the Federal Highway Administration.
TxDOT says it has a queue warning system for the I-35 Capital Express expansion in North Austin. KUT News asked TxDOT on Monday afternoon if the queue warning system had been set up for that specific line of cars on I-35 Thursday night, but we did not receive a response before this article was published.
Absent an advance warning system, Hale said there should be clear striping, signage, lighting and maybe even cones.
"Make it driving for dummies," he said.
Gabriel Leos, an experienced trucker familiar with Central Texas highways, said professional drivers should be able to navigate construction zones safely.
"It could have been avoided," Leos said from the cab of his Freightliner Cascadia parked at a truck stop on I-35. "We all have choices and he made a very bad choice."
Leos described systemic pressures faced by truck drivers, saying paying truckers by the mile encourages dangerous driving.
"They're having to run like a wild man down the road just to feed themselves and feed their family," said Leos, who considers himself lucky to be paid by the hour.
"If there was some kind of standard put in place to pay all these guys an hourly rate, a decent rate," he said. "I think it would eliminate a lot of these guys having to go down the road like a bat out of hell."
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