Driver of tractor-trailer in fatal Rutherford crash will be issued multiple summonses

RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- The truck driver involved in a fatal crash on Route 3 in Rutherford Monday will be issued multiple summonses.

The summonses, including motor vehicle and equipment violations, will be issued by next week.

The truck driver, 50 year old Ali Mutakabbi, of Clifton, has a legal responsibility to know the height of his truck and obey truck height signage, authorities say. Investigators have concluded he did not.

His truck appears to have been about eight inches higher than the overpass clearance, but the exact measurement is still being finalized. The overpass clearance was 14 feet.

More serious charges are not expected to be filed in connection with the death of the driver of the other vehicle, James Hart III, 39, of Bronxville.

Hart was driving a 2014 Honda around 2 p.m. when a tractor trailer hauling a shipping container on a flatbed trailer struck the Route 3 West Orient Way overpass, causing container to careen off the overpass and land on top of the car.

Hart's car was crushed, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mutakabbi was operating the truck, a 1992 Peterbilt.

For much of the afternoon and into the evening Monday, the car's horn blared away from under the massive shipping container.

"It fell off the truck and did a 360, and slammed the car against the wall inside the overpass," witness Frances Falcon said.

The container bore the markings of the global shipping company Hamburg Sud, but officials tell Eyewitness News that the container was sold prior to the crash Monday.

The new owner sent the truck to the Port of Bayonne to pick it up, and a half hour and a few miles later, it slammed into the 14-foot bridge.

Detectives spent hours taking measurements, as commuters spent hours in traffic. The line of brake lights reached all the way to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Route 3 West remained closed and was detoured at the Route 17 intersection until approximately 9 p.m.