18-year-old injured after rear-ending tractor trailer on U.S. 2

An 18-year-old Kiel, Wis., woman was injured after her 2016 Chevrolet Trax rear-ended a truck towing a lowboy trailer on U.S. 2 in Bates Township. The crash happened at about 1:11 p.m. Central time Friday near Bates-Amasa Road, and she was taken to Aspirus Hospital in Iron River before being transferred to another medical facility.

Iron County Sheriff Ryan Boehmke said, “The woman was the driver of a 2016 Chevrolet Trax that rear-ended a truck that was towing a lowboy trailer.” The collision happened on a stretch of U.S. 2 that carries local drivers, tourists and commercial traffic through the county, where a passenger vehicle can close on a heavy truck quickly if traffic slows or a driver does not have enough room to stop.

Rear-end crashes with tractor trailers can be especially severe because of the size and weight difference between the vehicles. A smaller vehicle can take the full force of the impact, and the driver can be badly hurt even when the truck shows little visible damage.

The sheriff’s office involvement shows the crash was treated as more than a routine property-damage call. On roads like U.S. 2, deputies often have to reconstruct how fast vehicles were moving, how close the following distance was and whether visibility, road conditions, distraction or sudden braking played a role.

The broader pattern on Upper Peninsula highways adds context. On Feb. 6, a US-2 crash in Schoolcraft County between a semi-truck and a pickup killed one person and injured four others. Together with other serious crashes involving passenger vehicles and large trucks in the U.P. during 2025 and 2026, the Iron County wreck fits a corridor where heavy freight traffic and everyday travel share the same two-lane road.