WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WAVY) — A former driver for Triton Logistics whose name emerged in a federal investigation of a fatal truck-bus crash but was not connected with the incident is corroborating information 10 On Your Side first reported Monday.
Dwayne Sykes drove for Triton for two years until early December 2022, just eight days before one of the company’s tractor-trailers rear-ended a a shuttle bus on Interstate 64.
“I cannot sit back any longer knowing what they did,” Sykes said in a Tuesday afternoon interview. “I can’t sit back any longer because I know what happened.”
In the early morning hours of Dec. 16, 2022, the Triton Freightliner rear-ended a shuttle bus returning to Hampton Roads from Richmond. Three passengers in the bus were killed — Montia “Tia” Bouie, along with brothers Jontae Russell and Xzavier Evans.
The driver of the Triton truck Daniel Cramer initially told state police he had just dropped off his supposed co-driver, Dwayne Sykes.
Sykes said he did not know who Cramer was, had never shared a truck cab with him, and said Triton never used co-drivers anyway.
Sykes got a call from state police in the middle of the night.
“They was looking for me as if I had been ejected out the truck. So (then) they thought was it a hit and run?”
So how did Sykes’ name end up associated with the crash when he was no longer with Triton?
“They stole my information,” Sykes said, “because I didn’t give anyone my permission to use my logs. So they had me assigned to that truck as if I was a co-pilot.”
The National Transportation Safety Board report said Cramer, the real driver, told their investigators that Triton gave him a cover story to use.
“I basically repeated what they told me to say,” Cramer is quoted as saying in his transcript, “that I had just dropped off my co-driver — which is the same thing that I told that state policeman that night.”
That sounds familiar to Sykes, who said that kind of cover story was common.
“Absolutely,” Sykes said. “That was the go-to.”
In the NTSB report, Cramer also described a data center in Lithuania that Triton used to manage — and when needed, manipulate — drivers’ electronic logs to make it look like they had more time for rest than they really did.
Sykes knows about that, too.
“They would backdate it,” Sykes said. “They can go into the system and change it.”
When asked if he had ever had his logs manipulated, he said, “Yes, I have. And I’m not proud of it.”
Sykes is happy now that he drives for a different company, and sympathizes with the victims’ families.
“I’m saddened and I’m devastated,” he said, adding that he’s been contacted by the attorney for one of the victims’ families.
10 On Your Side contacted Triton before yesterday’s report aired and the company had no comment. We sought comment again Tuesday, and we’ll update this story with any response.