Baylor County, TX — September 29, 2023, Jeffrey Flynn Branson was injured following a semi-truck accident at around 4:28 p.m. along U.S. Highway 82.

Details released by authorities say that the crash took place where U.S. Highway 82, U.S. Highway 183, and F.M. 1790 intersect, northeast of Seymour.

According to current public information, 55-year-old Jeffrey Flynn Branson was in a Lincoln Nautilus going westbound along U.S. 82. At the intersection ahead with U.S. 183, authorities claim that an eastbound tractor-trailer failed to yield turning left to go northbound. The 18-wheeler entered the path of Branson's Lincoln, and the vehicles collided.

Details say Branson was taken from the scene with incapacitating injuries. The truck driver's condition wasn't confirmed. Right now, the only mention of possible charges is a recommended citation for failure to yield the right-of-way.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

Frankly, if all of this is true, I'm still wondering how the truck driver managed to cause the crash. It doesn't seem like there were any circumstances which would have prevented a driver from clearly seeing oncoming traffic, so it's unfortunate that authorities only say what happened here and not why it happened. That said, it's not entirely unusual. If authorities feel the cause of the crash is obvious and that the at-fault driver is clear, they tend to move on without asking what factors led to the mistake in the first place. But those factors can often be more shocking than something as simple as failure to yield.

I'm reminded of a truck accident case I handled not long ago where a truck driver slammed into someone's car on the highway, and his employer claimed the crash was simply unavoidable. My team and I have heard that countless times, so we let the facts speak for themselves.

Through court orders, we obtained video from the truck's dash and inside the cabin that the trucking company clearly didn't want to hand over. To this day, what that video showed just baffles me. From the video, it was clear that the victim's car—which was disabled on the highway with its emergency lights on—was clearly visible about three-quarters of a mile down the road. Any reasonable driver would've had absolutely no problem changing lanes or slowing down without incident. Instead, the truck just kept getting closer and closer until it was too late for the driver to avoid the car. Why? Because the driver had his nose buried in a tablet watching TV shows instead of the road. How he went as long as he did without killing someone, I don't know. But his recklessness inevitably took someone's life, and it couldn't have been for a more senseless, idiotic reason.

Look, maybe this is a situation where something led to the crash that was unusual and unavoidable. That's why even seemingly open-and-shut situations warrant thorough investigations to make sure all the facts are clear. But when I see authorities say someone failed to see an oncoming vehicle at a seemingly safe intersection with no mention of factors that would impair visibility, I expect investigations to show there were serious mistakes made which need to be addressed directly.