Truck that crushed Pitman Farms worker owned by company with hundreds of safety violations

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A California-based trucking company owned by the makers of “Mary’s Chicken” branded poultry has an estimated accident rate nearly four times higher than industry standard and has racked up hundreds of safety violations, say two experts after they reviewed government truck safety records at The Fresno Bee’s request.

Pitman Family Farms, makers of the popular line of humanely-raised free-range poultry, has come under scrutiny recently for two worker deaths in less than a year at facilities and an injury rate at its Sanger poultry processing facility among the highest in the Central Valley. In one death, a 66-year-old worker drowned in a poultry waste pit during his shift . The latest death in February involved a 19-year-old worker who was run over after he was asked to wash a truck trailer in the same area where other trucks were operating at the plant, according to police records.

The truck involved in the tragedy is part of a fleet owned by Western Grain & Milling Inc., a separate company founded by at least one member of the Pitman family. The fleet of 145 trucks transports chickens to and from facilities throughout the region.

Publicly available data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration , a government agency that investigates and regulates commercial truck safety, shows that over the past two years WGM has racked up more than 200 violations for issues related to unsafe driving, driver fitness and vehicle maintenance issues (The fleet also does business as “Pitman Farms,” according to California Highway Patrol records). There have also been two deaths from crashes with Western trucks over the same period, though the accidents were caused by the other involved parties, records show.

A February Fresno Bee investigation found the Pitman Family Farms chicken processing plant in Sanger had a higher-than-average rate of injuries compared to other similarly-sized poultry processing plants nationwide . Now trucking safety experts say WGM’s transportation fleet has exhibited a “high” accident rate compared to industry standards, which could indicate unsafe business practices.

For this report, The Bee interviewed two consultants and expert witnesses with decades of experience in motor carrier safety and compliance. The Bee showed one of the experts police body camera video footage on the scene of the February fatality. They both reviewed WGM’s federal inspection records.

“Overall, this carrier has several areas that need attention from a motor carrier standpoint — things that do not reflect well on their safety and risk management programs,” trucking safety expert Richard Carr said.

Carr — who has over four decades of experience in transportation safety and risk management, including as a federal accident investigator with FMCSA — was offering his professional opinion of WGM’s federal inspection data. He said the range of violations indicates careless driver selection, “lax” training and monitoring of drivers on the road and poor training on pre-trip and post-trip inspections, where drivers should catch and report maintenance issues.

Carr also estimated the trucking company’s accident rate is about four times higher than the national average, based on available federal data, he said.

Wesley Curtis, owner of Commercial Truck Consulting LLC and a former California Highway Patrolman for 30 years, said he agreed with Carr’s observations.

The Bee sent an email with a list of questions to David Pitman, owner of Pitman Family Farms and an executive of Western Grain & Milling. He declined to comment on the specific questions related to Carr’s findings, and he did not respond to follow up requests for comment. David Rubenstein, vice president of operations of Pitman Farms, said in a June 14 email statement that the company anticipates a “significant reduction” in recordable truck-related accidents in its most recent federal filings.

In the late February incident, a truck registered to WGM ran over and killed Jose Abrego, a 19-year-old worker at the Pitman Family Farms chicken processing plant in Sanger, according to local police records obtained by The Bee.

A spokesperson for FMCSA said in an email to The Bee that Abrego’s death had not been reported to the agency. Because the incident took place on private property, it is not required to be reported to FMCSA, Carr said.

WGM was incorporated in 1987 and lists Richard and David Pitman as its executives on its 2023 Secretary of State business filings. The fleet transports poultry, meat, feed and other refrigerated cargo, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

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Violations ‘across the board’

As of June 18, WGM has had 242 violations over the last two years, ranging from mechanical issues to speeding.

Carr said WGM’s violations are “basically across the board — anything and everything that you could get a violation for at a commercial vehicle inspection.”

In the past two years, the firm was cited with 12 “driver fitness violations” — including three instances where driver’s did not have proper or valid commercial driver’s licenses. In another instance, the driver could not “read or speak the English language sufficiently to respond to official inquiries.”

“This company has issues when it comes to driver selection,” Curtis said.

Most violations, though, were related to vehicle maintenance issues, such as inoperable lights, cargo weight exceeding tire load limit and defective brakes , which resulted in 11 vehicles being taken out of service.

Pitman-owned fleet has ‘very high’ accident rate, experts say

Based on available 2022 USDOT mileage data, Carr estimates that WGM’s recordable accident rate over the past two years is 2.9 per million miles. This calculation includes accidents on a public roadway involving a fatality, injury or vehicle to be towed from the scene, without any determination as to responsibility. (This calculation assumes the fleet’s 2023 mileage was the same as 2022, Carr said.)

Carr said of the estimated accident rate: “It is very high and that’s concerning.”

Curtis, owner of Commercial Truck Consulting, estimates the recordable accident rate for 2023 alone is higher at 3.46 per million miles traveled, given available data.

“2023 was a bad year, holy crap. The company had nine accidents in 2023 — that’s not really good,” he said.

FMCSA and trucking safety consultants say the average recordable accident rate industry wide is about 0.74 per million miles. If Carr’s calculation are correct, the federal agency might be able to determine, according to its regulations, that WGM had inadequate basic safety protocols because its rate per million was greater than 1.5.

The agency’s website says readers shouldn’t draw conclusions about a carrier’s overall safety condition based on the public data on its website alone.

But Curtis said the number and type of violations indicate several driver safety issues, such as speeding, texting, hours of service violations and drivers not qualified to drive.

Carr said the company’s unsafe driving practices are a concern for local Central Valley residents.

“The people being exposed to the unsafe driving habits of their drivers... are the local residents around the company,” Carr said.

Hanford resident James Aguirre sued WGM after a crash in December 2017 that he said left him with “life long pain and suffering” following multiple injuries, including surgery on his elbow, an amputated left ear, depression and limited mobility issues that prevent him from working.

Aguirre alleged a WGM truck driver made a left hand turn off of Highway 198 and did not yield to oncoming traffic. As a result, Aguirre collided with the truck-trailer, was dragged onto a side street and had to be removed from his car with a Jaws of Life tool, according to Fresno County Superior Court records. The driver said he did not see Aguirre.

The lawsuit was dismissed following a settlement between Aguirre and the company for $1 million.

Neither of the two public road fatalities cited in the records involving WGM trucks over the past 24 months, however, were caused by WGM’s drivers, according to crash reports on file with FMCSA and CHP records.

On Aug. 21, 2023 a bicyclist in the Fresno County community of Calwa was killed when they rode out into the street and collided with a trailer . A few months later on Oct. 3, 2023, a 55-year-old driver “failed to stop” his 2022 Chevrolet Silverado on Highway 41 near Lemoore in Kings County and crashed into the back of a semi-truck stopped at a red light.