A woman is dead, and her companion injured after they struck a big rig at a US Route 395 intersection. The Olancha accident happened about 2 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13, near Sequoia National Park.
Robert Frost, 78, drove a 2016 Nissan Versa westbound on Gill Station Coso Road near US Route 395. Simultaneously, a big rig, driven by John Stiegler, 37, headed northbound on US Route 395. The Nissan continued through the intersection, allegedly not yielding to the big rig. The 2014 International tractor-trailer hit the left side of the Nissan, causing the car to overturn onto the center divider.
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First-responders declared the 88-year-old Nissan passenger from Sahuarita, Arizona, dead at the scene. Barstow’s Mercy Air airlifted Frost, a resident of Green Valley, Arizona, to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield. Stiegler, from Ridgecrest, did not sustain any injuries.
The accident involved numerous agencies. These included the Olancha Volunteer Fire Department, Liberty Ambulance, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), California Highway Patrol – divisions from both Inyo-Kern and Lone Pine.
In 2018, 4,136 people died in accidents involving big rigs. Of those accidents, 82 percent of the deaths were car occupants, pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists.
An average fully loaded big rig can weigh up to 80,000 lbs. In contrast, the average passenger car weighs somewhere around 4,000 lbs. As a result, when the two collide, statistics reveal the outcome isn’t usually in favor of the passenger vehicle, or its occupants.
Passenger drivers share the road with approximately 2.8 million truck drivers. So, it’s not surprising that there are approximately 400,000 to 500,000 accidents a year that involve big rigs. Consequently, in 2018, 11 percent of fatal vehicle crashes involved large trucks.