A 27-year-old oilfield worker from Kilgore, Texas, was killed early Tuesday morning after his car rolled over on a rural curve in Texas County, Oklahoma, throwing him roughly 105 feet from the vehicle. Kaleb Thomas Shafer was driving southbound on South Street Road near a curve at OK-136 when he lost control, and the vehicle rolled multiple times before landing back on its wheels. He was not wearing a seat belt, and no other passengers were in the car.
According to KOKH, the crash was initially reported around 11:51 p.m. Monday, though KSCB Radio News, citing an Oklahoma Highway Patrol report, places the crash time closer to 2:35 a.m. Tuesday. The discrepancy between the two timelines is unresolved, and both outlets attribute their timing to law enforcement sources. What is consistent across reporting is the outcome: Shafer was ejected during the rollover and did not survive.
A Commute Cut Short on a Familiar Panhandle Curve
Shafer, born June 22, 1999, in Kilgore, Texas, was commuting to his job in the Oklahoma oilfields when the crash occurred, according to memorial notices published by Legacy.com and Rader Funeral Home. The curve where his car left the road sits along a stretch of Highway 136 that has drawn scrutiny this year for its crash history. His family has invited his oilfield colleagues to attend his funeral in their work gear, a detail included in his obituary that underscores the tight-knit nature of the crews who travel these roads for a living.
Funeral services are scheduled for Saturday at Rader Funeral Home in Kilgore, after community fundraising efforts helped cover the cost of transporting his remains back to East Texas, the same memorial notices state.
Highway 136 Corridor's Rough 2026
Shafer's death adds to a string of severe crashes along the OK-136 corridor in Texas County this year. On May 2, a rear-end crash near Guymon killed two women from Borger, Texas, after their car caught fire, an incident that forced a four-hour closure of the highway, per KSCB Radio News reporting on the crash. Less than two weeks later, on May 14, a Guymon brush truck flipped near the Kansas line after catching the shoulder while responding to a wildfire, injuring two firefighters, according to Firefighter Close Calls.
The pattern points to a rural corridor where sharp curves, high speeds, and long distances between help combine into a persistent hazard. Texas County is the largest county by land area in Oklahoma, and reporting by KGOU on Panhandle public safety notes that the region relies on Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troop M and local sheriff deputies to cover expansive rural terrain, where emergency response times can exceed 30 minutes after a severe crash.
Seat Belt Use Lags on Rural Roads
Statewide, Oklahoma's seat belt usage rate climbed to 86.4% in 2024, up from 81.2% the year before, according to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office's fiscal year 2024 annual report submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But that compliance is uneven across road types. A 2024 observational study conducted by the University of Central Oklahoma for the state highway safety office found seat belt use on local and rural state roads at 82.9%, trailing the 89.8% compliance rate measured on primary interstates.
Oklahoma has required front-seat occupants to buckle up under primary enforcement since 1997, per the Oklahoma Mandatory Seat Belt Use Act, which carries a $20 base fine, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Federal research cited by the state highway safety office indicates that occupants ejected during a rollover are roughly three times more likely to suffer fatal injuries than those who remain restrained inside the cabin, a statistic that underscores the stakes of the compliance gap on roads like South Street Road and OK-136.
The crash remains part of a broader run of fatal single-vehicle wrecks across Oklahoma in recent days, including cases in Claremore and Shawnee also investigated by Oklahoma Highway Patrol. No additional details on the cause of Shafer's crash beyond the loss of vehicle control on the curve have been released.
