Personal Injury Law

Trucking Accidents

By Jeffrey Lowe

Trucking accident attorneys often focus on one case at a time, so it can be easy to forget that accidents involving tractor-trailers are happening almost constantly. As a reminder of how frequent these accidents can be, here are three stories that all took place within the last few days.

In Hartford, Conn., two people were killed in a tractor trailer accident on the 22nd. Police responded to the call around 5 am, and found that a tractor-trailer had collided with a passenger car. The two fatalities were from injuries sustained in the crash, though it is unclear if the victims were in the truck or in the car. It took authorities five hours to clear the wreckage from the road.

Thankfully, a similar collision between a semi-truck and a passenger vehicle left no one dead in the town of Anna, Texas. The passenger car swerved unexpectedly into the tractor-trailer's lane. The truck driver tried to get out of the way, but semi trucks are huge and hard to maneuver, and he was unable to do so entirely. Several people at the scene were taken to the hospital, but the injuries are not expected to be threatening.

Finally, the driver of a tractor trailer in Pennsylvania lost control of his vehicle on I-295. His truck went wild and plowed into the trees along the road, causing a massive traffic backup. Again, perhaps amazingly, nobody was hurt. However, traffic was affected for most of the day, with the accident taking five hours to clear from the road.

All these accidents, which took place in the last five days, represent only a handful of the incidents involving tractor-trailer vehicles this week alone. Semi trucks are massive vehicles and can be difficult to control; plus, drivers are often pushed very long hours in order to complete their routes on time. Caution must be exercised around semi trucks at all times.

Full post as published by Trucking Accident Attorney Blog on January 26, 2011 (boomark / email).