Trucker’s inattentive driving blamed in fatal pileup

The Patrol says inattentive driving is to blame in Tuesday's 11-vehicle pileup, but has declined to elaborate.

The Associated Press

7/17/2008

TOWN AND COUNTRY, Mo. — A decision on whether charges will be filed against the truck driver involved in an accident that killed two people and left 16 injured could be several days away.

A spokesman for the St. Louis County prosecutor’s office says the Missouri Highway Patrol report will be slow in developing as investigators sort through the 11-vehicle pileup that happened Tuesday on Interstate 64.

The Patrol says inattentive driving is to blame, but has declined to elaborate.

Jeffrey Knight of Muscle Shoals, Ala., was driving the tractor-trailer that plowed into stopped traffic. Three people remain in critical condition.

Several of the victims were members of a northeast Missouri Amish community who were traveling to a family funeral in Tennessee.