By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
Editor’s Note: This is part three in a planned series exploring the impact of Troy Caldwell’s death on his community and the need for greater roadway safety.
Community support for Troy’s Law, the proposed legislation named for Troy Caldwell, a wrecker operator who tragically lost his life in September of 2024, continues to grow as the spotlight is trained on the hazards wrecker operators and other first responders face on a daily basis. Caldwell was responding to a standard pickup of an inoperable automobile when he was pulled from the bed of his rollback while securing the vehicle. A semi passed too close to Caldwell’s rollback, and the speed and proximity of the semi to the rollback created a suction which pulled Caldwell from his vehicle.
As details of the incident involving the well-respected operator began circulating through the community, others have come forward to share their own hazardous encounters with other vehicles while going about their daily work. Many attribute the dangers to either the negligence of vehicle traffic or the refusal to follow proper precautions when encountering roadside work. And many also believe that Troy’s Law, a proposed law allowing wrecker operators to employ rear facing blue lights while working a call, could reduce those dangers drastically.
“There are too many backroads, too many curves and hidden driveways in this area, for anyone to ignore flashing lights of any kind,” local woman Marlene Carmack said.
Carmack knows the dangers firsthand because both her ex-husband and current fiancé make their living as truck drivers. And Carmack said that she believes the instance which cost Troy Caldwell his life was the result of someone simply not paying attention. There is a chance, she said, that the use of the blue flashing lights might have made the driver of the semi pay more attention.
“We need to get those light on these trucks,” Carmack said. “Every truck on that road needs to be lit up like a Christmas tree. It’s just that extra little bit that could prevent such a horrible accident as this man went through.”
Carmack said she thinks the flashing lights on top of most emergency vehicles do help, but there needs to be more.
“People just see too many flashing lights these days,” she said. “So, it’s easy to ignore them or just not really notice them.”
The addition of the blue lights, she said, might make people take notice where they might have been desensitized to other emergency light indicators.
There are too many distractions, Carmack said, so there needs to be an increase in emergency warnings.
“One of the main things I have seen is people driving while using their cell phones,” Carmack said. “If you’re on the road while they are doing that, it’s like someone has a gun to your head. And I don’t know, but maybe the person who hit Troy Caldwell was distracted using a cell phone.”
The rear facing blue lights might have been enough to overcome whatever distraction might have been the cause of Caldwell’s death, Carmack said. And whether it was negligence, distraction, or some other factor that caused the semi to not maintain the proper distance from the stationary wrecker, Carmack and many others believe rear facing blue lights might have made all the difference.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
