Livingston County, MI — October 8, 2025, one person was injured in a truck accident at about 1:45 p.m. on westbound Interstate 96 near Howell.

Authorities said a semi-truck crashed into traffic stopped in a construction zone near Pinckney Road. It hit a Chevrolet Equinox, a Ford Explorer and another semi-truck. The impact forced the second truck to hit another Ford Explorer and a GMC Acadia.

A 22-year-old Hemlock woman, who was driving the first Explorer, suffered life-threatening injuries in the crash, according to authorities. Her name has not been made public yet.

The driver of the first semi-truck was flown to an area hospital with serious injuries, authorities said, while two other people involved in the crash suffered minor injuries.

Authorities have not released any additional information about the Livingston County crash at this time.

Commentary by Attorney Michael Grossman

When a semi-truck plows into stopped traffic in a construction zone, people naturally want to know: What went wrong? Was the truck going too fast to stop? Did the driver not see the slowdown ahead? Or was something else at play, like distraction, fatigue or faulty brakes?

We don’t yet know what led to this serious crash in Livingston County, where a semi reportedly crashed into multiple vehicles already stopped on westbound I-96. One woman suffered life-threatening injuries, and the truck driver was flown to a hospital. That tells us this was a high-impact collision, not a minor fender bender. But so far, we’ve been given no explanation as to why the truck didn’t stop in time.

That missing information is critical. In my experience, when a truck rear-ends a line of stopped vehicles, investigators need to start by looking at the driver’s behavior and the truck’s onboard systems. Was the driver distracted on a cell phone or looking down at a GPS? Was the truck equipped with in-cab cameras or forward collision warnings, and if so, were they working? What does the engine control module (ECM), often called the “black box,” tell us about the truck’s speed, braking and throttle in the seconds leading up to the crash?

But driver behavior is only one part of the puzzle. Crashes like this sometimes expose problems with how trucking companies screen and monitor their drivers. In one case I handled, a trucking company hired a driver who had already been fired several times and gave her a 20-minute road test before putting her back behind the wheel. When that driver later caused a major crash, the real question wasn’t just “What was she doing at the time?” but “Why was she ever allowed to drive that truck in the first place?” Accountability doesn’t begin and end with the driver. It extends to everyone who helped put them on the road.

In this Livingston County crash, the trucking company’s policies and oversight deserve just as much scrutiny as the driver’s actions. Were they pushing tight schedules that encourage risky driving? Did they conduct proper background checks and training? We won’t know until someone demands to see the paperwork and the data.

Crucially, there’s still no word on whether the truck was slowing down before impact, whether the driver applied the brakes or even how far back he was when traffic began to slow. That’s information the ECM can provide, but it has to be preserved and analyzed before it’s lost.

Without that kind of evidence, it’s easy for the public to assume “it was just an accident.” But in many cases, it turns out to be a chain of preventable mistakes; the kind that proper policies, better hiring or working safety equipment could have stopped before anyone got hurt.

Key Takeaways:

• The central question is why the semi-truck failed to stop for slowed traffic in a construction zone.
• Critical evidence — like ECM data, dash cams and phone records — can reveal whether distraction, speed or fatigue played a role.
• Trucking company oversight, hiring practices and safety protocols may be just as important to investigate as the driver’s actions.
• Multiple vehicles were involved, but it's unclear who was hit first and in what sequence. Clarity will depend on a detailed crash reconstruction.
• Full accountability depends on an independent investigation that gathers and analyzes all available data before it disappears.