INDIANTOWN, Florida — A 31-year-old West Palm Beach man was killed on Wednesday night when his SUV ran into the back of a tractor-trailer that was backing across every lane of Warfield Boulevard in Martin County, in a crash that has again put one of Florida's most feared two-lane roads at the centre of a public argument about truck safety, driver licensing and a widening project the local sheriff says is coming years too late.
Source: Florida Highway Patrol release, reported by TCPalm / Treasure Coast Newspapers
The crash happened at about 9 p.m. on Wednesday, November 4, in the 20000 block of Warfield Boulevard — also known as State Road 710 — just north of Fox Brown Road near Indiantown, according to a Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) news release. A 2021 white Kenworth T680 tractor-truck pulling a 2000 Utility enclosed semi-trailer was backing south across all lanes of the boulevard. A 2026 Subaru Outback driven eastbound in the inside lane by the West Palm Beach man, in the words of the FHP release, 'failed to observe' the tractor-trailer backing across the road. The front of the SUV struck the left rear of the trailer, and the 31-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene.
A night-long rescue on a closed boulevard
Martin County sheriff's deputies reached the scene first and tried to render aid, Sheriff John Budensiek told reporters. Martin County Fire Rescue then spent most of the night working to free the SUV from beneath the truck. 'Fire Rescue came out and spent the majority of the night trying to lift the truck up with their special operations team and remove the vehicle from under the truck,' Budensiek said. Warfield Boulevard was closed temporarily between Fox Brown Road and Martin Highway while crews worked, according to sheriff's officials, and the patrol's live incident listing showed no roadblock remaining by early Thursday, November 5.
The dead man's wife learned that something was wrong before any official knocked on her door. Budensiek said she received a notification on her phone that her husband's iPhone had been involved in a crash, drove up from Palm Beach to the location the phone showed, and was met at the scene by a sheriff's chaplain, who told her that her husband had died. Neither the Sheriff's Office nor the FHP has released the names of either man involved in the crash.
The truck driver, and the questions now being asked
The tractor-trailer was driven by a 56-year-old New York man. Budensiek said the man's driver's licence was issued less than a month ago in Queens, New York, that he stayed at the scene and was interviewed by deputies, and that he spoke English with deputies while his native language is Mandarin. According to the sheriff's account, the truck had turned the wrong way and could not continue forward, and the driver chose to reverse out across the highway rather than stop and get help. No charges had been announced in the reports available on Thursday, and the FHP investigation was still continuing on the afternoon of November 5.
"So you have a semi that's turned the wrong way, can't continue, so instead of getting a flagger or calling somebody, backs out and blocks both lanes of traffic."
A road the sheriff himself calls a 'death trap'
Budensiek used the crash to renew a long-running local campaign over State Road 710. He said the Sheriff's Office has reached out to the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) about widening Warfield Boulevard. 'That's coming,' he said. 'It's my understanding that in 2028, which for me is too long from now, there's going to be shovels in the ground on that project.' He said deputies are on Warfield Boulevard writing citations every day, but added that the agency's own work shows local residents are not the problem: 'The locals are actually helping us, they're the ones reaching out to you, the media, me, the sheriff, saying hey we need help, we need help.'
The sheriff's frustration is not new. After several traffic deaths at the start of this year he urged residents to take their concerns about the road to state representatives and public officials, saying on January 13, a day after another deadly crash on the road: 'This highlights an issue that we've been having for many, many years. Highway 710, Warfield Boulevard, has been a death trap for motorists that have been commuting that road over the years.' Wednesday night's crash — an SUV meeting a trailer stretched across both lanes in the dark — is now the latest entry in that record.
For the many Punjabi and other long-haul drivers who run Florida freight routes, the details investigators have released carry a practical warning that goes beyond one county road. A driver who has taken a wrong turn in a tractor-trailer faces a hard choice, and the sheriff's account describes the most dangerous option: reversing blindly across live lanes at night, with no flagger and no warning to oncoming traffic. What the FHP has not yet said is whether the trailer's position, lighting or the SUV's speed played any part — those questions sit with the patrol's traffic homicide investigation.
What happens next
The Florida Highway Patrol continues to investigate, and its findings will decide whether the truck driver faces charges or citations; as of Thursday afternoon no arrest or charge had been announced in the available reports. The names of both men are expected to be released by officials once family notifications are complete. In parallel, Budensiek's push for FDOT to bring the Warfield Boulevard widening forward from 2028 is now a live local political question, with residents who use the road daily — commuters between Indiantown, Martin County and the Palm Beach area — waiting to see whether this death changes the timetable.