Rock chip justice: How worn mud flaps can impact liability for cracked windshields
by Matt Gephardt ksl, Sloan Schrage ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Philip Munoa's windshield was damaged by a rock he said was kicked up off the road by a dump truck.
- The truck had worn mud flaps, which Utah Highway Patrol Cpl. Dustin Livingston said would have resulted in him stopping the truck.
- While drivers are generally not responsible for debris already on the roadway kicked up, an equipment citation does not mean compensation.
COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — Typically, when a dump truck kicks up a rock off the road and flings it into a windshield of a car, the truck's owner is not responsible for the rock chip damage. But what happens when a truck has badly worn mud flaps?
That's the question Philip Munoa asked after he said the back wheels of a dump truck he was behind kicked up a big rock and flung it directly into his classic Mercedes' windshield.
Munoa said it happened in Cottonwood Heights as a dump truck merged onto Interstate 215 ahead of him.
"I see a dump truck spewing a big plume of dust out the back," Munoa said. "So, I stayed way back."
Still, a rock came flying back into his windshield and left him with a big rock chip.
Munoa said he managed to get the truck driver to pull over, and he got a closer look.
"I saw the mud flaps were all but worn off," he said.
Does it seem like these mud flaps can stop much debris from flying back?
Munoa didn't think so. He said he reached out to the company that owns the truck and asked them to replace his $2,000 windshield. They refused.
"And he said, 'Well, we're not responsible for any kind of debris on the road,'" Munoa recalled. "But I said, 'You are if you're not in compliance with your safety equipment. You had no mud flaps on your truck."'
Still, the company didn't budge. So Munoa decided it was time to call Matt Gephardt.
Utah's mud flap law
Gephardt took Munoa's photos of the mud flaps and rock chip to the Utah Department of Public Safety and showed them to Cpl. Dustin Livingston of the Utah Highway Patrol.
"Could you pull this person over?" Gephardt asked Livingston when Gephardt showed him the photos.
"Yeah. Yeah, I could," the corporal answered.
"Could" because mud flaps are not a courtesy in the state of Utah – they're the law for "trucks, trailers, truck tractors or altered motor vehicles."
Mud flaps – or the truck's fenders or body construction – must cover at least the full width of a truck's rear wheels and must cover the top half of the tires.
"In these pictures here, it's not covering the 50% all the way down the top half of it," Livingston pointed out.
"If a mud flap looks like this, is a trucker responsible for things they're kicking up?" Gephardt asked.
"It's hard to say," Livingston responded.
Here's where things get tricky: A citation for the worn mud flaps as an equipment violation (as it's officially called) is easily provable. But can that said equipment violation be blamed for Philip Munoa's rock chip damage?
"That's a little harder to prove — what debris it was and to that aspect," Livingston said.
Legal reality
It is a legal reality in Utah: Drivers are generally not responsible for debris already on the roadway that gets kicked up. And a ticket for bad equipment does not automatically mean the driver who gets hit by that debris will get compensated.
The KSL Investigators reached out to the trucking company, McCormick and Sons Excavating.
In an email, the company's co-owner wrote that "there is no evidence that our truck is at fault."
The co-owner also questioned KSL's investigation of Munoa's complaint, writing we are "targeting" his company to "drum up a story." Something the co-owner found "very disheartening."
What Munoa found disheartening is the lack of accountability.
"Companies like this," he said, "they bank on the fact that no one is going to pursue them."
He told us his insurance will cover the cost of replacing the rock-chip-damaged windshield. But that doesn't mean it will cost him nothing.
"When a company doesn't comply with the state laws and then they're slinging rocks up and that's a problem," Munoa said. "And we all end up paying for it through higher insurance rates."
Bottom line: A truck with worn mud flaps might get cited for an equipment violation. But unless you can prove a dump truck directly caused the rock chip damage, paying for the repairs may still fall on your shoulders.
Sometimes, a dash cam can help you provide that proof.
Photos
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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KSL InvestigatesUtahSalt Lake County
Matt Gephardt
Matt Gephardt has worked in television news for more than 20 years, and as a reporter since 2010. He is now a consumer investigative reporter for KSL. You can find Matt on X at @KSLmatt or email him at matt@ksl.com.
Sloan Schrage