YORK COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — More than two weeks after two accidents within less than 24 hours — one along I-83 and one on U.S. 30 — left five people dead, investigators haven’t released their findings.

But abc27 News has learned in both cases, they are focusing on the actions of box trucks involved in the crashes.

In the 13-car crash along U.S. 30 in West Manchester Township the morning of April 16, police believe a box truck driver fell asleep at the wheel before plowing into vehicles stopped or moving slowly before a traffic light at Kenneth Road, according to people who were at the scene after the accident. One person died at the scene; other died about 10 days later.

In the I-83 accident during the early-morning hours of April 17 — in Fairview Township near the Fishing Creek Road exit — witnesses told police they saw a box truck speeding and driving erratically before striking a work-zone vehicle and then the three workers who died, according to people familiar with the investigation. In that case, too — according to those people — investigators believe fatigue was a factor; they believe the driver had long since surpassed the maximum number of hours a commercial driver is allowed to drive in a day.

Is the fact that the vehicles involved were medium-sized box trucks, specifically — rather that, for example, 18-wheel tractor-trailers — significant? Yes and no, say experts and people who advocate for industries that are stakeholders in debates about safety regulations.

Generally, drivers don’t need a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to drive a vehicle weighing less than 26,000 pounds, as is the case for many box trucks, although abc27 News couldn’t confirm the weights of the trucks involved in the accidents.

Individuals who drive such trucks — usually renting them for a move from one house to another, for example — aren’t covered by regulations restricting how many hours per day someone can drive, explained John Rigney, a former Pennsylvania state trooper who is director of safety for the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association (PMTA).

But for anyone driving commercially — even someone without a CDL legally driving a midsized truck — “you still have time constraints,” Rigney said. “You have a 14 hour day, and within that 14 hour day, you’re allowed to drive 11 hours,” the same limits that exist for a CDL driver.

The difference, Rigney said, is that CDL drivers undergo so much required training that it would be nearly impossible for them to not know the rules, whereas the same training and road tests aren’t required of other drivers. He said a key part of his job is providing CDL-quality education to all commercial drivers, including those who aren’t required to carry the commercial license.

Peter Kurdock, general counsel for Advocates for Highway & Auto Safety, said driver fatigue causes at least 13% of all truck crashed.

A key way to change that, he said, would be to reduce the number of permitted driving hours each day.

“When you get into the tenth or eleventh hour of driving or the fourteenth hour of a duty window, the chances for a crash increase significantly,” Kurdock said. He said the “proliferation” of less-regulated, medium-sized delivery trucks is particularly problematic.

Charlie Morris, executive director of Pennsylvania Moving & Storage Associates, said he agrees driver fatigue can turn deadly, but he said reduced hours for all drivers aren’t the answer and wouldn’t have helped in the two deadly box truck crashes, if (as investigators believe is possible, according to the sources) the drivers involved exceeded the current regulations.

“In this particular case, it would seem like it could be a matter of compliance with the regulations, and that’s important. We have to abide by the hours of service rules that are out there,” Morris said. “They’re there for a purpose, and the purpose is for the safety of the driver, as well as the safety of all the other vehicles on the road and the people who are driving them.”

Morris said the proper incentives are already in place for companies that employ box truck drivers.

“The companies themselves obviously push their drivers to stay within compliance, because the downside can be rather catastrophic,” he said.

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Kurdock of Advocates — which is funded partly by the auto insurance industry — disagreed. He said violations happen because companies are tempted to bend or break the rules.

But he said technological advances like electronic logging devices — which make it difficult for drivers to fudge the number of hours they’ve driven — have helped.

And he said other advances — like automatic emergency braking systems, similar to the ones the U.S. government said just this week will soon be required in case — could prevent future crashes similar, in particular, to the one that happened on U.S. 30, in which investigators believe the box truck moving at high speed plowed into the slowing or stopped cars.

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