A pickup driver is dead after slamming into the back of a semi-truck on Highway 2 in Commerce City early Wednesday morning, an early-hours crash that shut down the highway's northbound lanes for hours while investigators worked the scene.
According to CBS Colorado, Commerce City police say the pickup rear-ended the semi and that the pickup driver was at fault for the crash. The driver of the pickup was killed, investigators said, while the semi driver is expected to be taken to a hospital as a precaution, per police.
Northbound lanes of Highway 2 stayed closed during the investigation and subsequent cleanup, though the exact duration of the closure was not specified.
A Familiar Stretch of Road
This is not the first time a semi has been involved in a serious wreck along that same corridor. Back in June 2021, a four-vehicle crash involving a semi-truck shut down Highway 2, also known as Colorado Boulevard, between 88th Avenue and 104th Avenue, according to KKTV.
In that earlier incident, the semi crossed the median of East 96th Avenue and came to rest on its side in the backyard of a home in the Eagle Creek Sub Division, CBS Colorado reported at the time. Five people were hurt in that crash — one was extricated from a vehicle and taken to the hospital with serious injuries, while four others were treated and released, the outlet noted. Both directions of the highway reopened around 9 a.m. that day, and the cause of that crash was never immediately determined, KKTV reported.
A Pattern Seen Beyond Colorado
Fatal collisions between pickups and semis have turned up elsewhere in recent months, too. In January, a 72-year-old Leeds man named Daniel Stave was killed after his pickup rear-ended a semi-truck on U.S. Highway 2 in Benson County, North Dakota, according to Valley News Live. That crash happened around 10:12 a.m. on westbound Highway 2 roughly six miles east of Leeds.
The outlet reported that Stave was not wearing a seatbelt, while the semi driver in that case was belted and was not injured.
For now, Commerce City police have not released additional details about Wednesday's crash, including the identities of those involved. Hoodline will update this story if further information becomes available.
