School District 20: Plow truck lacked specific safety equipment in fatal crash Tuesday

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Some people are asking about the safety of the Ford F-250 truck that was being used as a snow plow in the aftermath of its driver dying from a crash Tuesday morning.

Stephen Houston, a 27-year-old grounds technician with Academy School District 20, was killed when the truck crashed into a ditch off Gleneagle Drive.

Late Wednesday afternoon, District 20 revealed that Houston's truck did not have "headache bars," a nickname for cab protector and designed to protect drivers and passengers from objects flying through rear windows.

Since the day of the crash, KRDO has received several comments from viewers asking if the truck was outfitted with that safety feature.

The Colorado State Patrol said Houston was struck by part of the salt-sand spreading machine installed in the truck bed, and that the machine broke loose from the impact of the crash.

KRDO's video of the truck, as it was being towed away, shows the rear glass presumably shattered with parts of the spreading machine speared through the window and into the cab.

Several viewers who watched KRDO's video said they saw no sign of headache bars on Houston's truck, or on other district trucks parked at the scene.

The district and a local truck expert agree that, surprisingly, headache bars are generally required on flatbed trucks but not pickup trucks.

"There is some debate about if they are effective," said district spokeswoman Allison Cortez. "Especially when the item in the back is large and/or heavy. They are mostly used to ensure that things like landscaping tools or construction tools don't fly through the glass of the cab."

Greg Budwine, owner of Ledom's Truck Equipment Shop, in Colorado Springs, said not installing the bars on pickup trucks is a personal choice for drivers.

"I have to assume that most of the time, that truck running around does not have a sander in it, and that sander's only in there in the winter time," he said. "So they didn't put a protector on there so that they could see better when that sander's not in that truck.  And that happens a lot."

Budwine said whether headache bars would have saved Houston's life depends on a variety of factors.

"I don't know how fast he was going, I don't know the hill that he went down," he said. "I didn't get to see any of that.  But it was a big enough impact that the airbags in the truck went off.  So there was a big enough impact and enough speed to create that to happen."

Cortez said the district has decided to install bars on an unspecified number of pickup trucks.

"If [they] could add an extra layer of safety, we want to move forward with adding them," she said.

Late Wednesday evening, Travis Easton, public works director for Colorado Springs, sent the following Twitter message in support of the district: