Trucker Whose Spilled Cargo Killed 6 Pleads Not Guilty

The driver of a flatbed truck who lost his load of concrete pipes on a Mojave Desert highway last summer, killing six people in two other vehicles, pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a Barstow courtroom to six felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.

The driver, Richard H. Sommerville, 59, of Riverside, was held on $500,000 bail. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for April 12.

If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison, said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Sinfield, who is prosecuting the case.

Sommerville was found by the California Highway Patrol to have a blood-alcohol level of 0.05% after the crash, exceeding the legal limit of 0.04% for commercial truck drivers. The level of intoxication for other motorists is a blood-alcohol level of 0.08%.

The CHP previously concluded that the three pipes, each 30 feet long and weighing about 15,000 pounds, had been improperly loaded onto Sommerville’s truck in Adelanto, where they were manufactured.

The pipes fell off the truck when their nylon restraining straps snapped as Sommerville was negotiating a curve on California 58 between Kramer and Boron on Aug. 2. The straps broke under the strain when the pipes shifted after one of two wooden support beams beneath them broke. The problem was exacerbated because the timbers were not properly placed over the trailer’s structural steel I-beams for adequate support, the CHP found.

The pipes tumbled onto the highway, demolishing two oncoming vehicles. Killed were all four occupants of a minivan--Randy and Melissa Ledford of Redlands, their son, Lonny, 9, and their daughter, Skyler, 6--and the occupants of the other vehicle, Manuel and Sandra Vigil of Las Vegas.

Sinfield said the pipes might have remained securely on the flatbed if Sommerville had used more straps to restrain them. Four straps were used, but investigators found a dozen others in the truck cab that could also have been used, Sinfield said.

State law does not specify how many straps should be used to restrain such loads, only that the number be sufficient to hold the load secure.

The alleged crime actually occurred when Sommerville failed to supervise the loading of the pipes onto his truck hours earlier, Sinfield said.

“That’s his responsibility,” Sinfield said. “He’s the driver of the vehicle and is responsible for verifying that the load is secure prior to transporting it. It’s our opinion that he failed to comply with that law. We believe that had something to do with the fact that he was drinking prior to transporting the pipes.”