AP Transport of Blaine, WA, owner of a truck that caused a massive crash on Interstate 90 in Washington last week, has a history of safety violations, reports KOMO News.
The Washington State Patrol said the big rig started a chain reaction 14-vehicle accident in which a 9-year-old girl was critically injured and six other motorists were hurt.
Mike Mullins, a log truck driver, was the first hit by the AP Transport rig.
“The other truck? Yeah, I remember him going way too fast for the traffic that was stopped in front of him,” Mullins told KOMO. “All I seen was him come to the left a little bit as I was going by. And then I felt him hit me.”
The inspection records for AP Transport showed a fairly high record of defective vehicles; 42% of them had been pulled from service, according Det. Greg Wilcoxson of Washington State Patrol. State records showed the state patrol has conducted 52 random inspections on AP vehicles. Of those, AP had 24 maintenance violations, including seven problems with the brakes and four tire violations all serious enough that the state took the trucks out of service.
Additionally, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation gave AP Transport an 84.7% overall safety rating; the best records should be between 1 and 20%, according to KOMO.
