Death of Centre County Tow-Truck Driver Raises Safety Concerns for Roadside Responders

CENTRE COUNTY/CLINTON COUNTY, Pa — Over the weekend, a Centre County based tow truck driver was killed in Clinton County while removing a disabled vehicle on a highway. Jim Corl’s death has local first responders shaken, for more reasons than one.

Corl was tragically killed outside his tow truck in an accident on Interstate-80 eastbound, by the Loganton exit.

“Jim was just one of those individuals that would do anything for you at any time, drop whatever he was doing, always had a kind word and he was just a wonderful man to be around,” said Ted Gabriel, a Fire Police Lieutenant at Alpha Fire Company in State College.

He was killed when a vehicle rear-ended his parked truck and caught fire.

The State Police report says he was outside of the truck, attempting to remove a disabled semi-trailer, when the crash occurred.

Gabriel, who is one of many at Alpha Fire Co. to have worked with Corl, is infuriated, and believes this should not have even happened.

“It actually makes me angry as a first responder," he said. "The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania passed the Move Over Law, which went into effect on April 27th of this year. It requires all motorists to move over into the far lane whenever there is a first responder working and if they cannot move over, they must slow down in their present lane closest to that first responder, a minimum of 20 mphthis should have been preventable because that individual should have been into the farthest lane.”

And tow truck drivers don’t have as much preventative equipment as fire companies do, which could have made a difference here.

“They use flares, they use yellow lights and stuff like that but they don’t have the red lights and stuff like the fire departments do,” said Joseph Wirtz, a Fire Police 2nd Lieutenant at Alpha Fire Co.

Wirtz is often in positions similar to where Corl was, and says drivers need to be more cautious when approaching and passing responders.

“People don’t seem to want to pay attention, they don’t slow down," he said. "I mean, they’ll pass us at high rates of speed and not paying attention to what’s going on and, you know, that concerns us.”

A State Police investigation into the incident is ongoing. Funeral Services will be held on Friday, November 12th at Koch Funeral Home, and will then follow the procession to Pine Hall Cemetery. Staging is set to begin at noon.

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