Over 100 Year Prison Sentence for Truck Driver Guilty in 2019 Accident

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On a steep Colorado downgrade in 2019, a truck driver named Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos crashed into stopped traffic, killing four people in the fiery aftermath.  The driver reportedly lost the ability to stop his trucks due to brake failure, missed a runaway truck ramp, and then crashed into vehicles stopped in front of him.

Two years later, Aguilera-Mederos has been found guilty and sentenced to 110 years in prison for his part in the accident.  His charges include vehicular homicide, first-degree assault, and reckless driving.  He will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Since the passing of his sentence, a petition for leniency has seen millions of signatures.  The sentence is seen as being overly harsh, considering the truck driver did not intend to cause any harm and was likely just inexperienced and not thoroughly knowledgeable about operating in the mountains.

In commercial truck crashes, most of the attention typically goes to the driver instead of the carrier.  In Canada’s Humboldt crash, the driver received a prison sentence and then deportation, while the carrier’s owner was fined about $5000 along with the company being shut down.

Victims and family members are not in concordance with the truck driver sentences in either of these cases, but it does appear, for Aguilera-Mederos at least, that public opinion supports a lighter sentence.