St. Leonard, MD — January 7, 2026, one person was injured in a truck accident at about 10:45 a.m. on State Route 4/Solomon Island Road South.

Authorities said a Tesla sedan ended up sandwiched between a box truck and a septic truck near Ball Road/Calvert Beach Road.

The Tesla driver, whose name has not been made public yet, was flown to any area trauma center with unspecified injuries, according to authorities.

No other injuries were reported.

Authorities have not released any additional information about the Calvert County crash at this time. The accident is still under investigation.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

When folks hear that a car ended up “sandwiched” between two trucks, they may assume it was just an unfortunate chain reaction; bad luck more than anything else. But as someone who’s spent decades digging into these types of crashes, I can tell you: crashes like this don't just happen without someone, somewhere, making a critical mistake.

What we know so far is that a Tesla sedan was caught between a box truck and a septic truck. What we don’t know is how it got there. Was one of the trucks stopped at the time, or were all three vehicles in motion? Did someone brake too late, change lanes without warning or follow too closely? Each of those scenarios points to a different kind of failure, and possibly a different party at fault.

Depending on the exact sequence of events, a few key questions need to be answered:

• Was one of the truck drivers following too closely or not paying attention? If so, dash cams or in-cab footage could show what they were doing in the moments before impact.
• Was the Tesla already stopped or slowing when the crash happened? If it was hit from behind and pushed into the truck ahead, that could suggest the rear vehicle failed to control its speed. But again, we don’t know yet.
• Were there mechanical failures involved? Did the brakes on either truck malfunction, or was there a load shift that changed how the vehicle handled?

Unfortunately, these aren’t the kind of questions most police reports answer thoroughly. They’re best answered through access to black box data from the trucks, driver cell phone records and a deep dive into company safety policies. In my experience, the deeper you dig, the more you tend to uncover, whether it’s poor driver vetting, ignored maintenance issues or training that didn’t cover basic following distances.

I worked a case not long ago where one company’s shortcut on training led to a driver misjudging how long it would take to stop fully loaded. They never taught him what to expect in real traffic. That oversight turned a minor slowdown into a life-changing wreck. If something similar happened here, it won’t be obvious from the outside. It takes investigation.

Key Takeaways:

• Crashes involving vehicles “sandwiched” between trucks often involve more than one point of failure.
• Whether one or both trucks were moving or stopped is a crucial unanswered question.
• Black box data, dash cam footage and driver phone records could help clarify what went wrong.
• Trucking company hiring, training and safety policies may play a role, depending on what the investigation reveals.
• Independent investigation is often necessary to uncover who was really at fault.