Trucker is charged in Chaska crash that killed motorcyclist

A trucker was driving an overloaded big rig with faulty brakes when he ran a red light, collided with a motorcycle at a Chaska intersection and killed the rider, according to hit-and-run charges.

Jeffrey W. Pike Jr., 46, of New Germany, Minn., was charged Monday in Carver County District Court with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and failure to obey a traffic signal in connection with the crash on July 14 that killed Mark R. Hagen, 52, of Chaska.

Pike was charged by summons and has a court date scheduled for Dec. 16. Court records do not list an attorney for him. Pike was reached Wednesday afternoon by phone for comment and declined to answer any questions.

According to the criminal complaint:

Police arrived shortly before 9 a.m. at Engler Boulevard and Clover Ridge Lane and saw Hagen on the pavement next to his motorcycle. He died soon afterward at HCMC. The truck was gone by the time police arrived.

Pike was heading west on Engler with a full load of gravel and went through a red light at Clover Ridge Lane, said two motorists who witnessed the crash. One of the motorists said she was slowing down for the same red light that "had been solid red for approximately 10 seconds and that there was plenty of time [for the trucker] to stop," the charges read.

Pike contradicted the witnesses and said he had a green light as he entered the intersection. He recalled feeling his trailer move while in the intersection, "but thought it was a gust of wind" and continued on, the complaint read. A weather report that day referenced wind speeds at about 10 miles per hour around that time.

The trucker's trip that morning was one of several he was making to haul gravel from an Eden Prairie pit to a construction site in Waconia. The pit operators told investigators that the load that Pike had with him at the time of the collision was 2,000 pounds more than allowed.

A law enforcement inspection of the truck found pieces of the motorcycle embedded in the side, and part of the trailer was dented from the impact.

Law enforcement also found "numerous violations serious enough to render the semi-truck and trailer 'out of service' and could not be operated safely until fixed," the charges continued.

The more than a dozen violations in all included a disengaged air hose in one brake chamber, chafing on another air hose, and a cut in one hose that "was previously attempted to be repaired with electrical tape," the complaint noted.

Pike has been cited three times — in June and August 2019, and October 2021 — for inoperable or defective brakes.