Victim of fatal Route 3 crash in Rutherford identified
DANIELLE PARHIZKARAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
RUTHERFORD, NEW JERSEY
Police said they expect to issue motor vehicle summonses to the driver whose truck struck an overpass on Route 3 Monday, causing its load to fall and crush a man in an adjacent car.
Ali Mutakabbi, a 50-year-old Clifton resident, was traveling in a 1992 Peterbilt truck carrying a shipping container on a westbound lane on Route 3 when the container hit the overpass and toppled onto a 2014 Honda traveling in the next lane, Rutherford police said on Tuesday.
The driver of the Honda, James Hart III, a 39-year-old Bronxville N.Y. resident, was killed in the accident, police said.
The crash occurred at approximately 2:30 p.m. Hackensack University Medical Center Paramedics pronounced Hart dead at 3:17 p.m., Capt. Patrick Feliciano said.
When officers responded to the scene, Feliciano said, they saw that the container had landed on top of Hart’s vehicle and trapped him. Efforts to reach Hart were “hampered by the instability of the container,” police said.
Route 3 west remained closed and was detoured until approximately 9 p.m. on Monday night.
In February, another flatbed truck slammed into a Paterson Plank Road overpass in Secaucus; approximately five miles away from Monday’s accident.
Large pieces of steel fell from the truck and pinned a driver of a van and its passenger. Leonard David Bowens, 57, a passenger in the van, died from his injuries.