Dump, Garbage and Construction Truck Crashes

This page covers how often these trucks appear in Middlesex crashes, the local crashes we can source, the public-versus-private rules, and the in-state hours and licensing rules that apply to single-unit trucks. Garces, Grabler & LeBrocq, P.C. answers the operator question first, because the 90-day clock does not wait.

September 21, 2023, US 9 South, Parlin section of Sayreville. A dump truck left the road and struck a pickup that was turning into a gas station, killing the pickup’s driver. The Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and Sayreville Police investigated.

January 24, 2024, US 1 southbound at New Road, South Brunswick. A rideshare car struck a stopped dump truck. Two people were seriously hurt and were treated at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick.

July 25, 2024, NJ 18 at South Woodland Avenue, East Brunswick. A cyclist was killed in an overnight crash with a dump truck (NHTSA FARS).

The federal crash file also records a fatal dump-truck crash on NJ 440 in Woodbridge on July 18, 2026, reported by the State Police, and a fatal garbage-truck crash on Jersey Avenue in New Brunswick on June 11, 2026 (FMCSA crash file). We list those as data rows only; the details have not been reported. A dump truck also struck two tractor-trailers stopped on the shoulder of the Turnpike near the Grover Cleveland Service Area in Woodbridge, killing the dump truck’s driver; the public record does not give the date.

Dump trucks figure in two common crash patterns. A truck leaving the roadway or striking something stopped, as in Parlin and on Route 1, raises questions about speed, brakes and the driver’s attention. A turning or merging crash with a cyclist or pedestrian, as on Route 18, raises the truck’s blind zones and whether the route and time of day were appropriate for a heavy single-unit truck. Garbage trucks add a third: crashes at the start and end of a stop, when the truck pulls out from the curb or a yard. The firm’s published truck cases include one of those; see our Results page.

Dump trucks, garbage trucks and mixers are usually single-unit trucks that never leave New Jersey. That puts them under the state’s own version of the federal rules. New Jersey adopted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations for intrastate carriers (N.J.A.C. 13:60-2.1), with two changes that matter here: an in-state driver may drive up to 12 hours within a 16-hour window after 10 hours off, and may work 70 hours in 7 days or 80 in 8. Intrastate carriers must also hold an active USDOT number, which is how we pull the company’s inspection and crash history.

A driver of a straight truck of 26,001 pounds or more needs a Class B commercial driver’s license (49 CFR 383.5). Every CDL driver, including a town employee, is subject to drug and alcohol testing, and after a fatal crash the test is mandatory (49 CFR 382.303). Brakes on an overloaded truck are a listed contributing factor on the crash report, which is why we ask for the weight tickets and maintenance records early. Maintenance records are kept for one year and driver vehicle inspection reports for three months (49 CFR 396.3, 396.11).