A 41-year-old Pontiac man remains in critical condition after he was ejected from a truck during a violent crash on eastbound Interstate 96 in Brighton Township, where a Jeep Cherokee hydroplaned and slammed into a wood chipper being towed just off Grand River Avenue. The 28-year-old driver of the Jeep was traveling at high speed when he lost control on the rain-slicked highway Friday morning, according to investigators.
The crash unfolded as a 2010 Jeep Cherokee, driven by a 28-year-old man, headed east on I-96 and struck a wood chipper attached to a 2015 Ford Super Duty truck, according to CBS News. The impact caused the wood chipper to rotate, and the 41-year-old passenger riding in the Ford truck was ejected and taken to a hospital. The Livingston County Sheriff's Office, which reported the crash and its initial findings, said the driver of the truck was not injured, and investigators noted the ejected passenger was not wearing a seat belt.
Weather Turned the Highway Into a Hazard
The crash happened amid a severe weather outbreak that swept Southeast Michigan on Sept. 3 and 4, bringing heavy rain and prompting local tornado warnings in Livingston County, per CBS News. The same storm system produced winds up to 70 mph and knocked out power to more than 450,000 DTE Energy customers across the region, an outage scale that underscores just how disruptive conditions were for drivers navigating the interstate that morning.
As of Saturday afternoon, the sheriff's office said the crash investigation remains ongoing, and speed appears to be a contributing factor, according to investigators cited by the station's report. Under Michigan's basic speed law, codified as MCL 257.627, drivers can be cited for traveling too fast for conditions even if they stayed under the posted limit — meaning a driver hydroplaning in heavy rain on a 70 mph stretch of I-96 could still face a violation if investigators determine the speed was unsafe for the weather. Rural stretches of I-96 outside major urban centers are typically posted at 70 mph for passenger vehicles and 60 mph for trucks, with a 55 mph minimum, according to the same account.
Ejection Risk and the Seat Belt Question
The passenger's ejection puts the crash squarely inside a well-documented danger zone. Federal crash data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that 79% of unbelted passenger vehicle occupants who are totally ejected in fatal crashes die, compared with just 1% of belted occupants who experience total ejection. NHTSA research also indicates that lap and shoulder belts reduce the risk of fatal injury to light-truck occupants — like those riding in a Ford Super Duty — by 60%, and cut moderate-to-critical injury risk by 65%.
Michigan law, under MCL 257.710e, requires drivers and front-seat passengers to wear fastened seat belts, with violations carrying a $25 civil fine that rises to roughly $65 once justice system assessments are added. The state operates under primary enforcement, meaning police can stop a vehicle solely because an occupant isn't belted. It remains unclear whether the ejected passenger will face a citation, and toxicology testing and any potential charges against the Jeep driver have not been confirmed.
Crash Reconstruction Underway
The Livingston County Sheriff's Office maintains a Traffic Safety Bureau staffed with certified crash reconstruction deputies who use physics-based formulas applied to physical scene evidence to estimate vehicle speeds before impact. That kind of analysis is expected to play a role in determining whether the Jeep driver faces any citations tied to speed or the wet-road conditions.
This is not the first severe, high-speed crash to draw a heavy investigative response in Livingston County. In April 2025, a high-speed crash in Green Oak Township left one person dead and two others seriously injured, prompting an extensive review by county crash teams — Hoodline reported on a Howell woman's death in that incident. Statewide, Michigan recorded 288,880 traffic crashes in 2024, resulting in 1,099 deaths and 71,316 injuries, according to Michigan State Police figures compiled by Koussan Law.
The condition of the critically injured passenger has not been updated beyond his critical status, and it remains unknown whether the Jeep driver will ultimately be cited or charged. Hoodline will continue to follow the investigation as the sheriff's office releases further findings.
