Opinion ID: 1894414
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Heading: prime's semi and the collision

Text: Joe Butchko and Carl Wallace, Prime employees, were the drivers for Prime's semi headed east on Interstate 80 out of North Platte on the morning of January 22, 1982. Snow fell constantly as Wallace drove the semi at 50 to 55 miles per hour toward Kearney. Approximately 50 miles west of Kearney, Prime's semi encountered a snowpacked Interstate, blowing snow, and ice beginning to form on the highway. The visibility had deteriorated to less than a quarter of a mile and was diminishing. Wallace, at the time, did not realize that Prime's semi was passing the Kearney interchange on the Interstate. As he was continuing eastward, shortly after 1 p.m., Wallace dropped the tractor into fourth or fifth gear, the low side of the tractor's 10 gears, so that the rig was moving at 20 miles per hour in [n]ear blizzard conditions and poor visibility 5 miles beyond Kearney. I-80 consisted of four lanes for traffic, that is, a grass median separated the Interstate's two westbound lanes from its two eastbound lanes. While Wallace was driving the semi in the right, or south, lane of eastbound I-80, the rig jackknifed on the ice- and snow-covered highway, causing the semi to move to its left and into the median, where the semi hit something and bounced back onto eastbound I-80. The semi slid across the Interstate's eastbound lanes and south shoulder, struck a guardrail adjacent to the highway's shoulder, and finally, in a jackknifed position, came to rest with its tractor headed somewhat northeasterly. The tractor's rear duals were against the guardrail. Wallace and Butchko got out of the tractor to examine the damage. The highway's guardrail was damaged, and the tractor's fuel tank was punctured, allowing diesel fuel to escape onto the highway. Prime's stationary unit was blocking the right lane and partially protruded into the eastbound Interstate's left, or north, lane. Butchko and Wallace returned to their tractor, where Wallace engaged the tractor's two axles for additional traction, rather than the one axle utilized in normal over-the-road movement of a semi. The semi moved slowly but, as the rig began to jackknife again, Wallace was unable to steer the tractor, which was then moving into the north, or passing, lane of eastbound I-80. At that location on the Interstate, there was a slight incline ascending toward an overpass east of Prime's semi. Wallace was unaware of the incline and, having straightened the semi in the north lane, continued an attempt to move the unit eastward. After 2 or 3 minutes in such maneuver, Wallace realized we weren't going to go any farther, so we left it there in the left, or passing, lane of I-80. Prime's unit did not have a citizens band radio, but Prime's drivers went to another truck, which had stopped behind the Prime unit against the south guardrail and had a radio which was used to send a call for help. Wallace and Butchko returned to the cab of their unit, where they waited for help to arrive. Prime's unit was not equipped with sand, chains, or flares, but did carry some small plastic reflectors for placement on the road. Wallace and Butchko decided not to use the reflectors, which they believed would blow away in the snowstorm's strong wind. While Wallace and Butchko were waiting for the summoned help, the unit's trailer lights and emergency flashing lights were operating. Although cars passed on the south side of the stationary Prime unit, Butchko and Wallace took no steps to warn motorists about the situation involving Prime's semi. After 10 or 15 minutes, a cruiser of the Nebraska State Patrol arrived and stopped, according to Wallace, approximately four car lengths, or 32 feet, directly behind Prime's trailer in the north lane. Trooper Thomas E. Nesbitt of the Nebraska State Patrol had responded to the call for help regarding Prime's semi. When he arrived, Trooper Nesbitt found Prime's unit in a blizzard and blocking all the north lane and about one-half of the south lane of eastbound I-80, although there was approximately 14 feet of passable driving surface on the south side of the stationary semi. According to Trooper Nesbitt, he stopped and stationed his cruiser at a point in the north lane 25 yards immediately behind Prime's trailer. Trooper Nesbitt activated the cruiser's emergency flashing equipment, which included the standard emergency flashing lights and a Visibar, which has alternating flashing lights and rotating lights on it, and then proceeded to contact Wallace and Butchko, whom he met midway between the trailer and the cruiser. Wallace told Trooper Nesbitt that the Prime unit couldn't make the incline. Because state property, namely, the guardrail, had been damaged, Trooper Nesbitt told Wallace and Butchko that an accident report would have to be filled out, and suggested they return to the cruiser to complete that report. While the three were inside the cruiser, and as Trooper Nesbitt was replacing his radio's microphone after a call for a wrecker, the trooper glanced into the cruiser's rearview mirror and saw Younglove's eastbound semi as it went into a jackknife in the passing lane, or, in the trooper's words, I observed a semi tractor-trailer that was going to run into mythe rear of my vehicle, that it was starting to jackknife and then run into me. The impact from the collision spun the cruiser around maybe three times and forced the cruiser into the south railing on the overpass. After colliding with the cruiser, Younglove's semi then struck the right rear of Prime's trailer and propelled that semi to a position alongside the cruiser at the overpass. The weather conditions described by Trooper Nesbitt and Wallace prevailed until photographs were taken by the Nebraska State Patrol shortly after the collision. Those photographs substantiate the storm conditions recounted by Wallace and the trooper.