A Wilmer man was killed early Saturday morning after he was struck by a tractor-trailer on U.S. 98 west of Mobile, according to Alabama Law Enforcement Agency troopers.
Troopers said the crash happened around 4:50 a.m. on U.S. 98 about 15 miles west of Mobile, in an area of the highway that carries a mix of commercial trucking and rural commuter traffic overnight. Wilbert Lee Moffett, 52, of Wilmer, was struck by a 2009 Kenworth tractor-trailer driven by 67-year-old Lindsey Craig Stockdale of Mobile, according to ALEA Trooper Curtis Summerville. Moffett was pronounced dead at the scene. Stockdale was not injured in the crash.
ALEA troopers said the investigation into the circumstances of the crash was ongoing, and no additional details about what led to the pedestrian being on the roadway at that hour were immediately available. Early-morning pedestrian crashes on rural highway stretches like U.S. 98 are frequently complicated by low visibility, given the lack of street lighting common on many two-lane roads in western Mobile County.
Wilmer, an unincorporated community in western Mobile County, sits along a stretch of U.S. 98 that connects Mobile to the Mississippi state line and sees a steady flow of freight traffic overnight, given its role as a corridor for trucking between the two states. Local residents have periodically raised concerns about pedestrian safety along the highway, particularly in areas without sidewalks or reliable lighting.
ALEA, which investigates traffic fatalities on state and federal highways across rural Alabama, said additional findings from the crash investigation would be released as they become available. No further updates on the case had been made public as of the initial report, and the agency continued to ask anyone with information about the crash to come forward.
U.S. 98 remains one of the primary east-west routes through western Mobile County, connecting rural communities like Wilmer to both Mobile and the Mississippi state line, and it carries a steady mix of freight and passenger traffic throughout the overnight hours. Troopers said fatal pedestrian crashes on the corridor, while not routine, tend to draw close scrutiny given the limited lighting and shoulder space along much of the highway.