Moooving violation: Cattle scatter after trailer overturns

NOTE:
Inspections on trailers just one pound under 3,000 are not required.

Most often it is the poor condition of the trailer that causes accidents. Was this trailer a double axial trailer?

If so when was the last inspection?

Jill Nance/The News & Advance

Roscoe Goode (left), of Richmond, inspects his trailer that was holding eight cattle before it overturned on U.S. 29 on Monday afternoon. One of the cows had to be put down while the others scattered.

By Carrie J. Sidener

Published: June 23, 2009

Seven cattle remain roaming the land around the U.S. 29 bypass after a car crash Monday afternoon set them loose.

The cattle escaped the trailer of 63-year-old Roscoe Goode, of Richmond, when it overturned as he headed south on the U.S. 29 bypass near Galts Mill Road in Madison Heights around 2:30 p.m. Monday.

There were eight cattle in the trailer but one was injured so badly that it had to be put down, said Trooper Mike Ledbetter of the Virginia State Police.

The crash happened as Goode was driving south on the highway in his Ford F250 towing the cattle trailer when a box truck, driven by Gary Smoot, 47, of Forest hit the back end of the trailer, Ledbetter said. The impact caused Goode to lose control of the truck and trailer, and the trailer overturned. Smoot was charged with reckless driving.

Traffic on U.S. 29 was backed up as crews took more than an hour to clean up the crash.

Neither driver was transported to the hospital.

Emergency crews couldn’t capture the seven cattle that escaped in the crash.