Personal Injury Law

Missouri Road Safety - Unreasonably Dangerous Condition on Missouri Roadway for Single Cable Guard Barrier to Prevent Cars from Going Off Cliff - Insufficient Safety Measure - Car Accidents with Injuries Foreseeable

By Benjamin J. Sansone, Esq.

A serious car accident occurred in Missouri after a vehicle slide of the roadway and then off a 30' cliff in DeSoto Missouri. See Missouri Car Accident from Improper Barrier.

I am representing the driver and front passenger of the vehicle and other Missouri personal injury lawyers are representing the back seat passengers of the vehicle. The driver's policy will be quickly depleted given the driver's limited amount of insurance coverage; however, there is a critical issue of liability on the city of DeSoto for failure to properly maintain and make the roadway safe. Simply put, it is foreseeable that a car can slide slightly off the road through ordinary negligence or just as a result of adverse weather conditions, however, the only thing between the road and a 30' death fall is a weak single cable, shown to the right. At a minimum a three cable guard is appropriate but a steel guard is the standard.

A steel road guard would have keep the car on the road and prevented a minor negligent act of allowing a vehicle to slide off the road a few feet from becoming a catastrophic accident resulitng in persoanl injury. Driver error and slightly running of the road by a few feet is entirely a foreseeable event and the city has a duty to make the roadway safe from these foreseeable errors. Not only is the city legally liable for the injuries to all four people in the car, but the statutory limits of recovery allow for $350,000 per person to recover from the city for its negligence and the causal connection with failing to keep a minor accident exactly that, a minor accident. This allows me and the other Missouri injury lawyers to help out our injured clients in getting fully compnesated for their injuries or at least much closer to full compensation than that offered by the low mandatory limit of insurance most driver's carry; $25,000 per person.

MODOT - Cable Guards

Full post as published by Missouri Injury Law Blog on December 05, 2007 (boomark / email).