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UPS identifies drivers killed in Pennsylvania Turnpike crash

Company says Daniel Kepner, 53, and Dennis Kehler, 48, were driving together in one of the three tractor-trailers involved in the early morning pileup east of Pittsburgh that left five people dead and about 60 injured.

Nate Tabak
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Three tractor-trailers were involved in a Jan. 5 accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that left five people dead. Photo: WPXI TV

UPS identified two of its drivers as among the five people killed in Sunday morning’s crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. 

Daniel Kepner, 53, and Dennis Kehler, 48, were driving together in a tractor-trailer out of the UPS’s Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, operations center.

“Our drivers will be missed and our thoughts and prayers go out to their families,” UPS said in a statement to FreightWaves.

Kehler had 28 years of service with UPS, while Kepner had been with the company for five.


Their truck was among the three tractor-trailers involved in the Jan. 5 pileup in the westbound lanes of the Turnpike, 30 miles east of Pittsburgh. About 60 people were also injured in the crash.

The incident occurred about 3:40 a.m. when a tour bus crashed into an embankment. Two of the trucks hit it shortly after, and a third then struck the two tractor-trailers, Pennsylvania State Police said.

UPS did not release any details about a second UPS tractor-trailer that appears to have been involved in the crash, based on photos from the scene of the accident.

A FedEx Ground tractor-trailer also appears to have have been part of the crash, though the company has yet to release any details or information about the drivers.


Both UPS and FedEx pledged to cooperate with investigators and offered sympathies to the victims.

Police have yet to pinpoint an underlying cause of the series of crashes. Investigators are working with the National Transportation Safety Board.

8 Comments

  2. Art

    Very unfortunate.

    CDL driving is a dangerous job but the pay is not much better than a warehouse job at Amazon.

    The freight rates and driver pay are a joke as if truck driving is a fun vacation.

    $40k annual income at Swift risking a crash like this.

    1. Roger

      If you’re making 40k driving a truck you’re doing something wrong. My wife and I make 70-80k each driving teams. We are company drivers with full benefits.

      2. Art

        Even at $70k annual, pay is $19 ph for 70 hours on duty not counting sleeping away from home.

        Trucking driving should be at least $25 ph for experienced drivers.
        Pay is just not appropriate for the health and death risk of the job.

        FW and trade press reporting driver pay is skyrocketing need a reality check.

        While office workers are getting paid $25-$50 ph to sit at desks for 8 hours surfing porn, facebook, and linkedin.

  3. Troy

    Unfortunately that’s why you do not stop at the scene of an accident if you can avoid it. There will be serious lawsuits and as the reporter said a fed ex truck may have also been apart of the accident “according to pictures at the scene” that fed ex truck is now apart of the investigation and most likely will be sued as well as the driver, regardless if he was involved or not. Lawyers go after everyone including innocent bystanders if they can get money.

Comments are closed.

Nate Tabak

Nate Tabak is a Toronto-based journalist and producer who covers cybersecurity and cross-border trucking and logistics for FreightWaves. He spent seven years reporting stories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe as a reporter, producer and editor based in Kosovo. He previously worked at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the San Jose Mercury News. He graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of American policing. Contact Nate at ntabak@freightwaves.com.