FedEx truck driver sentenced
Missoula County District Court Judge Dusty Deschamps sentenced New Jersey truck driver Sergey Buslayev Wednesday morning to 10 years in Montana State Prison for negligent homicide. Buslayey, 57, lost control of a FedEx tractor-trailer combination driving towards an accident scene on Interstate 90 in 2008, killing a volunteer firefighter.
Judge Deschamps originally sentenced Buslayey to a 20-year sentence, but decided to suspend 10 years of the term. Judge Deschamps also sentenced Buslayey to six months in the Mineral County jail for negligent endangerment. The negligent endangerment sentence is to overlap with the negligent homicide sentence.
Buslayey, born in Russia, was found guilty June 30 to the one count of negligent homicide and the one count of negligent endangerment.
According to charging documents published June 10, 2010 by Mineral County Attorney M. Shaun Donovan, Buslayev acted negligent when he slid out of control rotating counter clockwise.
The charging documents state:
Before the accident around 11:49 a.m. December 17, 2008, West End volunteer firefighter Jerry Parrick had been assigned to warn westbound traffic on Interstate 90 of a traffic accident about a mile ahead of his location. Parrick was parked between Haugan and DeBorgia.
Parrick’s 2008 Dodge Ram 3500 had rooftop and taillights flashing red and amber lights, which could be seen from at least a half mile away. Parrick was parked about a foot off the right hand driving lane and sat in the driver’s seat.
Several commercial motor vehicles passed by Parrick without incident, traveling between 35 and 55 miles per hour. Buslayev was traveling between 63 and 72 miles per hour when he began to skid. If Buslayev took his foot off the brake when he saw the flashing lights, he could have slowed to 29 miles per hour, calculations showed.
Instead, Buslayev lost control of the tractor-trailer combination.
The two trailers he was hauling crushed Parrick’s pickup truck and pushed the truck 189 feet across the highway. The accident caused blunt force trauma to Parrick.
Serious mechanical flaws and operator errors where found from an inspection of the tractor-trailer. Buslayev, who was traveling with the semi’s owner Vladimir Kuchukov at the time, was traveling too fast for the conditions. The inspection also found the differential interlock brakes needed to be on for better traction, the engine brake should have been off to avoid the jackknife slide, the “5th wheel slider was out of position, tires were worn, axel 3 was imbalanced, Buslayev should have used the service brake not the trailer brake and no pre-trip inspection was performed.
Buslayey had prior negligent driving behavior according to the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. In 2006, Buslayev was convicted of reckless driving in a commercial vehicle, in 2003 he was convicted for failure to yield to an emergency vehicle and in 2002 he was convicted for failure to observe a traffic control device and failure to make repairs.