ETNA, Ohio — A truck driver in Ohio has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide because of his involvment in a November 2023 chain-reaction crash involving a charter bus filled with high school students that left six people dead and 18 injured.
Jacob McDonald, of Zanesville, Ohio, was indicted Thursday, July 18, on charges that also include vehicular assault; he is being held in jail on a $1 million bond. Court records did not list an attorney for McDonald. Calls to listings for McDonald were not answered.
An Ohio Department of Public Safety report stated that McDonald, the driver of the 18-wheeler, was following too closely in traffic. According to state investigators, McDonald failed to slow down in traffic, struck a vehicle and pushed it into the bus, which was carrying students and chaperones from the Tuscarawas Valley Local School District in eastern Ohio.
According to Licking County Emergency Management Agency Director Sean Grady, the charter bus was transporting students from a school in eastern Ohio. A total of 57 people were on board the bus.
The crash on Interstate 70 last November killed three students on the bus and a teacher and two chaperones who were in a separate vehicle hit by the tractor-trailer.
Five vehicles were involved in the crash in Licking County, east of Columbus.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
Focus on the drivers of these cars! People are so aggressive and want to rule the highway, Your not going to win with a 80,000 lbs missile that takes a football field to stop. Education is key for sharing of the roads..
you are so right the car’s out here on the road anymore are on there phone’s all the time but the DOT want to get after the truck driver.And the ELD is BS no where to park. and the biggest reason for all the pellup is because of the truck on the hwy that are goven at a set speed limit in my opinion is BS they can’t get out the way .just my 2 cent but the government can’t figure it out not rocket ses
But let’s face it. He was driving too close. We know that it takes a football field or 3 too slow these things down to a stop. I’ve been OTR for 15 years. Yes 80% of the 4 wheelers are a*******. But professionally we know this. And it sucks.