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A Pleasanton residence was severely damaged this week when it was struck by an out-of-control tow truck, narrowly avoiding the resident and forcing him to leave his home.
A Pleasanton Police Department spokesperson confirmed that the house on Delucchi Drive in Pleasanton’s Asco neighborhood was too damaged to inhabit after it was hit by a truck at approximately 10 a.m. on Thursday (April 20).
The resident, Mukul Katiyar, said that he is now staying at a hotel after barely avoiding injury during the incident.
“I escaped miraculously by a couple of feet, but the house is severely damaged,” Katiyar told the Weekly.
PPD Sgt. Marty Billdt said that upon investigation, police believe the incident was a “freak incident” that was the result of bad luck, and that no evidence of malice or substance abuse were found to be behind it.
“It sounds like this maintenance crew was trying to load a tractor onto the bed of a tow truck, and the bed was in a downward position, and as they were trying to load this tractor … the weight of the tractor caused the tow truck to get lifted up the front of it, which forced the tow truck in a forward motion causing the driver to lose control, so the driver lost control hit a parked car hit a fence and hit a resident’s house,” Billdt said.
With the home now uninhabitable and PPD having determined the cause of the accident, Billdt said that the next steps toward recourse for Katiyar would be undertaken by the city’s engineering department.
Misunderstanding the weight distribution limits of a commercial vehicle is not a freak accident, it’s malpractice by the operator of the towing vehicle.
sjd, precisely what I am pointing out to the city and the Pleasanton PD. I was extremely fortunate to have had that sedan parked at the curb right next to the home, or else it might have been a very different news story here.
There were many witnesses, and they saw the numerous violations due to the risky maneuver the driver was performing, so it does concern me a great deal when PPD characterizes it as a “small” or “freak incident resulting from bad luck”. I sincerely hope they do perform a thorough investigation in the violations that lead to this terrible outcome. Accidents like these don’t just happen as a chance or bad luck, and that’s why here are codes for preventing these bad outcomes.
Nothing in the story indicates the police department views this as a “small” incident. It simply says the tow truck operator didn’t deliberately set out to drive into the house. The solution now rests in the engineering department, to determine what will need to be done to enable the owner’s return to his home. Rest assured the tow company, perhaps the machinery company whose equipment was being loaded, and the City will all be working toward a speedy and satisfactory resolution for the homeowner.
And you can probably bet your boots the insurance company (companies?) investigators will be thorough.
I sincerely hope the insurance company investigations does better than Pleasanton PD’s callous findings. The only violation their report states is one that of not securing the load on the tow truck.
-No drug/alcohol test for this commercial driver after such a severe accident.
-The report claims it was “loss of control”, but then the truck continued driving through the parking lot even though its front tires had lifted and left the pavement! Was he attempting a stunt?
-Thereafter the truck accelerated with full throttle for several seconds, as per witnesses, from near crawl in the parking lot, to gain enough momentum to cross more then 30 feet of street, dislodge a sedan from the curb and flung it by about 10 feet, before tearing through the fence and the house.
-No real accident scene investigation of how this could unfold, or what really happened beyond what the driver and witnesses told the police.
Overall, there is a lot the Pleasanton PD leaves unanswered and unmasked for reasons only they can explain.