EAGLE MOUNTAIN, Utah — A second driver has been charged in a 2023 road rage incident that killed two people in Eagle Mountain.
Michael Alan Landen, 42, was charged in late January with two counts of misdemeanor negligent homicide and one count of misdemeanor reckless driving.
The charges came weeks after another driver in the incident, Peterson Drew Matheson, was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for his involvement in the accident.
On the afternoon of June 4, 2023, Landen was driving eastbound on SR-73 in Eagle Mountain when Matheson attempted to pass in his pickup truck on the right shoulder of the road.
Landen told detectives that Matheson was tailgating him at an "uncomfortably close" distance and that he tapped the breaks on his Maxima to "show disapproval." As the two vehicles traveled at a high rate of speed while parallel to one another, Landen admitted to speeding up which did not allow Matheson to pass.
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Charging documents show that the two vehicles made contact with each other "multiple times" before Matheson swerved in front of Landen's car and careened into oncoming traffic, crashing head-on into a Porsche driving in the opposite direction.
The two people in the Porsche, Rodney Salm and Michaela Himmelberger, were killed. Both were driving with other Porsches that were part of a car club that Salm was involved with.
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An accident reconstruction report claimed that five seconds before the collision, Matheson's truck was "traveling at 74.1 miles per hour in a 65 MPH zone and the multiple rotating tire marks on both vehicles ... indicated [the two vehicles] were traveling at relatively similar speeds while in contact with each other."
Matheson pleaded guilty to two 2nd-degree felony manslaughter charges and was sentenced to two consecutive 0-5 year sentences that will be served back-to-back.
Now living in Nevada, Peter Salm has been separated from the tragedy by a bit of time and space.
It’s allowed him to remember all the good Rodney brought into their lives.
“His sense of humor was off the scale. He was just the life of the party,” said Salm. “We really miss that.
But every time the wheels of justice turn in Rodney’s case, the emotions of that terrible day in 2023 come flooding back.
“You know, every time you heal a little bit and get away from it,” Salm said. “Then all of a sudden it rears its head again, you get back into all the details, and that’s probably the hardest part for the family.”
“You’re basically doing an assault with an eight to 15,000-pound vehicle,” said Salm.
He’s seen the permanent pain that’s inflicted not just on victims’ families, but also on the loved ones of a suspect.
“They’re victims of this as well,” Salm said. “They come out of the courtroom crying and grieving… just as we did.”
While he says there’s not much else his family can do now but wait for justice to be served, there is something Utahns can do every time they get out on the roads.
“Stop driving with your ego on your shoulder, and your anger and your rage, and just let it go,” said Salm. “Just drive safe.”
