LAWTON - Comanche County’s commissioners sued WasteSolutions LLC and truck driver Darion Blate, who is accused driving a Peterbilt 520 garbage truck for seven miles “after one or more” of the tires on the trash collection vehicle “failed, deflated, or otherwise came apart, leaving the bare metal wheel and rim ... grinding into the asphalt surface of the roadways.”
The exposed rim(s) “cut, gouged, scored, scarred, and destroyed” the asphalt surface of several miles of Airport Road, Deyo Road, Coombs Road, Baseline Road, and Southwest Pecan Road on July 25, 2025, the lawsuit claims. The rim(s) left “a continuous deep gouge extending for miles and rendering the roadways damaged, degraded, and in need of substantial repair.”
To date, WasteSolutions “has paid nothing, repaired nothing, and tendered nothing to its insurer,” the lawsuit alleges. “The roadways remain damaged.”
Moreover, WasteSolutions is accused of “failing to take timely action” after a private citizen telephoned the company “to report that one of its trucks was being driven on its rim,” according to the lawsuit petition.
Blate is accused of “negligent and improper operation” of a WasteSolutions truck while “performing his assigned route.” He “owed a duty to exercise ordinary care in the operation of the truck,” but breached that duty by:
•continuing to operate the vehicle after the tire failure and driving it “for miles in that condition;”
•failing to stop the truck “at the first safe opportunity;”
•failing to “summon a roadside tire service or wrecker service available to him;”
•failing to report the tire blowout to his employer, and failing to answer or respond to “his employer’s attempts to reach him;”
•and operating the truck in violation of three sections of state law.
For its part, WasteSolutions was negligent for:
•failing to adequately train Blate “concerning the mandatory procedure to be followed upon a tire failure;”
•failing to supervise or monitor Blake’s operation of the truck, “including through the vehicle telemetry and route data;”
•failing to intercept, stop, or recall the truck “when Blate abandoned his assigned route and did not respond to communications.”
The lawsuit was filed last Monday in Comanche County’s Court Clerk’s office. The county seeks actual damages in excess of $75,000; punitive damages “as permitted” by state statute; “reasonable” attorney’s fees, court costs, plus interest for prejudgment and postjudgment “as allowed by law.”