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http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050820/NEWS01/508200360/1095

 

Andrew Tangel
News-Leader

At least four people died on Ozarks roads Friday afternoon as the Missouri Highway Patrol reported a 10 percent increase in the traffic death toll across the state since this time last year.

In Springfield, a garbage truck driver was killed around 2 p.m. when he swerved to miss a car stopped ahead of him and collided head-on with a tractor-trailer rig in the 1800 block of North West Bypass, police said.

After the trucks crashed, the trash truck rotated and its cab hit the stopped car, a black Pontiac, police said.

The wreck left the garbage truck on its side in the middle of the road and the tractor-trailer in a ditch. Fuel, garbage and wreckage were spilled.

Police identified the garbage truck driver as Benjamin D. Vice, 19, of Willard. They could not determine whether Vice, who was ejected, was wearing a seat belt.

The tractor-trailer driver, a 52-year-old Fair Grove man, suffered moderate injuries and was taken to an area hospital. The car's driver, a 53-year-old Springfield woman, was treated and released from a hospital. Her grandson, also in the car, was reportedly unharmed.

Police closed West Bypass from Division to Kearney Street for more than two hours as emergency workers cleared the scene and bystanders watched.

The driver's death hit home for Todd Bruinekool, 39, who also drives a garbage truck in Springfield.

"People just don't pay attention," he said.

Also Friday afternoon, a head-on crash on U.S. 65 in Dallas County killed a Springfield woman in her 40s and a man and woman from Oklahoma, said David Brown of the Greene County Medical Examiner's office.

Authorities did not release the victims' identities becacuse their families had not been notified.

The Missouri Highway Patrol reported Friday morning that the state's roads had seen 800 fatal accidents this year � an increase from 721 in the same time period last year.

In Springfield, fatal accidents have been down since last year, according to police totals dated Aug. 11. In that time frame, eight people have died in city traffic accidents; 12 died in the same period last year.

Not included in those numbers is the death Thursday of Betty B. Baumberger, 85, of Brookline Station.

She died from injuries suffered when she drove her car from Kansas Expressway onto Bennett Street and into the path of an oncoming car, police said in a report. Both drivers had solid green lights.

Baumberger died at St. John's Hospital. The other driver was admitted and a passenger in her car was treated and released.