Trucker not on phone nor speeding when wreck occured, family says

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

11/22/2010

THIRD OF THREE PARTS

©2010 Trucker Publications Inc.

Kenneth Laymon, the driver of the Hester Inc. truck who died in the March 26 accident near Munfordville, Ky., in which 10 others were killed, was going to start a new job with a different company the Monday after the accident.

What’s more, the family has been told that he was not on his cell phone at the time of the accident, which was reported in the mainstream news media as a probability.

And he wasn’t traveling 80 miles an hour because his truck was governed at 62 mph, The Trucker has learned as part of its two-month investigation into the circumstances surrounding the purchase of Hester Inc. assets by FTS Fleet Services.

(The Trucker has posted two other articles related to the investigation. Click here to read article one, click here to read article two.)

Laymon, 45, went to work for Hester in mid-January and while driving for them, “He was governed. I know that because I rode with him,” Laymon’s widow, Misty, told The Trucker. “That was a big deal. They said he was driving 80 miles an hour. He couldn’t drive 80. He would tell me, ‘I’m hammered down at 62 miles an hour.’ You know how truck drivers are and when you’re told that as a wife so much, it sticks in your head.”

As for the cell phone issue, the Kentucky State Police said that the accident occurred at 5:17 a.m. CDT and Misty told The Trucker the activity on her husband’s cell phone was at 5:14 a.m. and lasted only 30 seconds.

Laymon was trying to call a friend, but the call never connected, she said.

She was also told by authorities the 911 call came in at 5:17 a.m., but doesn’t know who made the call. “You can’t tell me my husband went from the right lane on southbound through the left lane, through the median, into a cable barrier [and] into a rock wall over a cell phone call. He didn’t brake until halfway through the median. Something happened.”

The NTSB hasn’t released any data since its preliminary report following the wreck, pending the completion of its investigation. After the investigation is completed a board hearing will be held on the accident.

Misty said her husband’s week began when he picked up a load in Alabama and headed to Lansing, Mich., to drop-and-hook, bringing the second load back to Cullman, Ala.

He was driving a tractor that was not in good repair and was frustrated when he talked with her on Monday.

After a couple of weeks on the job, his truck broke down and he was given a second truck, which he told his wife was a “yard truck.”

“As far as people go, Ken really liked all the [Hester] brothers,” his wife told The Trucker. “He liked his dispatcher. He wasn’t disgruntled against them personally, just their business practices. So when he goes into this [second] truck, he starts with nothing but problems. Things would break down and they wouldn’t fix it. His cruise control was out at one point, his driver’s side door wouldn’t open. They just wouldn’t fix anything.”

“I’m done,” she said he told her that Monday. “He said ‘if they don’t get me back in my truck next week, I’m not driving this truck anymore.’ He just kept putting up with it because you have to work when you have a family to take care of.”

Laymon called his wife while en route to Michigan.

“He said ‘Misty, my truck is not pulling right.’ He said he didn’t know if his load was loaded sideways, but he said ‘my truck is not pulling right,’” Misty related.

Laymon was not able to contact his dispatcher and went on to Lansing.

During a conversation between the couple Monday, Misty said they decided it was time to change jobs.

So she took Laymon’s resume, medical certificate and other documentation to Energy Hauling in Simonton, Ala., and set up a telephone interview between Laymon and company officials.

The call was made, Laymon was hired and was to report to work there March 29.

“On Tuesday around lunchtime, Ken calls me upset,” Misty said. “He’d dropped and hooked and was on the road he died on. He’s already picked up the brake drums. He’s on an off-ramp and the drive shaft falls out of the truck. When the drive shaft falls out of the truck it takes all his brake lines. He was mad because there was a state trooper there and he didn’t have any triangles in the truck. He was mad because the triangles should be in the truck. So the mechanic comes and they transport Ken and the truck to the shop and he gets put in a motel that he’s paying for. There will be reimbursement later, but that’s tough when there are four of us at home.”

Parts had to be ordered for the repair, so Laymon stayed in the motel until Thursday.

Sometime around 4 p.m. Thursday EDT, he headed south on I-65.

At 10:30 that night, he called Misty again.

“He was somewhere in Indiana. He was getting ready to stop and get some sleep,” she said. “He did not have an appointment time for Cullman, so he wasn’t real concerned. He wasn’t in a hurry. He’d already been off for 72 hours.”

It is likely he was in southern Indiana.

It’s 369 miles from Lansing, Mich., to Louisville, Ky., a trip of about 6.7 hours at 55 mph,  5.9 hours at 62 mph.

It’s about 75 miles from Louisville to Munfordville, Ky., where the accident took place.

At 4:28 a.m. Friday, Misty’s cell phone rang.

It was Kenneth.

“He’s wired. Good morning, he says,” Misty recalled. “I said to him, ‘why are you calling me at 4:30 in the morning?’ He thought it was 5:30 because coming through Kentucky, he’d been in the Eastern time zone and his phone clock had not changed to Central time yet. I said, ‘let me start the coffee pot and I’ll call you back.’ And I did. I talked to him until nine or 10 minutes before the wreck.

“He told me ‘I’m hammered down on I-65 at 62 miles an hour.’ That’s what he always said. Ken was better at driving early morning because if he got tired, he would stop and sleep. I was going to meet him at 12 o’clock.”

Laymon told her he had packed all his personal belongings and was ready to turn in his truck in preparation for his new job.

The Hart County, Ky., coroner told The Trucker that his autopsy revealed nothing medically that would have contributed to the accident.

The toxicology report was clean.

Officials have told the family that they could find nothing wrong with the truck, a 1999 Freightliner FLD 120 manufactured in mid 1998.

There were several recalls in the late 1990s and early 2000s for 1999 Freightliner FLD 120 model trucks, but efforts were unsuccessful in determining whether the truck Laymon was driving was one of those and if so, whether the recall work had been done.

The truck had been wrecked once before in 2000, CARFAX reports show.

Perhaps no one will ever know what happened at 5:17 a.m. March 26, other than 11 precious lives ended and families were left to wonder and grieve.

The NTSB may try to list a cause, but even then, can anyone be 100 percent certain?

Probably not.

It is what it was: an accident.

The national news covered the story as a tragedy for the family in the van. But Kenneth Laymon was a family man, doing his job — just like a couple of million truck drivers every day.

He just didn’t make it home.

Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at editor@thetrucker.com.

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