Washington Parish, LA — July 17, 2025, Tommy Dollar was killed due to a logging truck accident just before 1:15 p.m. along State Highway 21.

According to authorities, 64-year-old Tommy Dollar, of Angie, was traveling in a southbound Dodge Ram pickup truck on S.H. 21 in the vicinity north of Bogalusa when the accident took place.

Officials indicate that, for as yet unknown reasons, an International logging truck attempted to enter the highway from a logging road at an apparently unsafe time. A collision consequently took place between the logging truck and the pickup truck.

Dollar reportedly sustained fatal injuries over the course of the accident. It does not appear that anyone else was hurt. Additional details pertaining to this incident are not available at this point in time. The investigation is currently ongoing.

Commentary

When a commercial vehicle like a logging truck tries to enter a highway and someone ends up dead, the central question becomes: Did the truck driver misjudge a gap in traffic—or ignore it altogether? Either scenario points to a failure in judgment that can carry serious legal consequences.

We’re told the logging truck entered State Highway 21 from a private logging road and collided with a southbound pickup truck. That alone tells us the truck driver had a legal duty to yield. The rules are clear: anyone entering a public highway from a private drive must wait until it’s absolutely safe to do so. If a driver pulls out when an oncoming vehicle is too close or traveling at highway speed, there’s no room for error—and no excuse if someone gets killed as a result.

I’ve handled cases like this before, and one common thread is poor visibility at the exit point. Was the logging road curved, overgrown, or set at an angle that limited the driver’s view? If so, did the trucking company take any steps to compensate—like flagmen, mirrors, or adjusted dispatch procedures? These factors matter when determining whether this was a tragic mistake or a preventable failure rooted in how the operation was run.

There’s also the issue of how quickly the truck could accelerate. Logging trucks are heavy and slow to get up to speed, especially if they’re fully loaded. If the driver misjudged the time it would take to cross or merge into the highway, the danger to oncoming vehicles would be obvious. That’s not just a driving error—it’s a foreseeable hazard that a responsible operator should be trained to avoid.

None of this speculation substitutes for evidence. Investigators will need to examine skid marks, impact points, dash cam footage (if available), and the truck’s black box to confirm speed and throttle data. But based on what's been reported, the focus will likely center on whether the truck driver took the highway when it simply wasn’t safe to do so.

Key Takeaways:

• The logging truck had a duty to yield before entering the highway from a private road.
• A failure to properly judge traffic gaps—or poor visibility at the access point—may have contributed to the fatal collision.
• Fully loaded logging trucks accelerate slowly, making timing and judgment critical when merging into highway traffic.
• Investigators will need to evaluate scene evidence and vehicle data to determine whether this was a preventable error.
• Legal responsibility may extend beyond the driver to the company, depending on training, supervision, and route planning practices.