Virginia Trucking Accident Attorney Blog » killed

Tractor-trailer Jackknifes into Van Filled with Disabled Passengers Killing Four

bmurray — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:17:36 +0000

by Jim Lewis

Although the roads and highways along Virginia’s I-81, I-64 or I-66 have not reported any recent bad tractor trailer accidents, there was one in Springfield, Ohio today. A tractor-trailer jackknifed on icy road conditions and slammed into a van filled with disabled passengers that were being transported. The big rig swerved into oncoming traffic colliding with the van killing four of its occupants and injuring 7 others that were inside as well.

According to Ohio Highway Patrol, the tractor trailer accident occurred near Springfield in southwest Ohio. Road conditions had become treacherous as it had been snowing most of the day in the area. However, it still is not clear what role the weather played in the crash. An official reported that the semi was heading westbound on Interstate 70 when it crossed the median and struck the 15-passenger van as well as another vehicle heading the opposite way. Sgt Durant with the Ohio State Patrol stated that all four deaths were occupants in the van, which included the driver. There were seven others injured that were also van passengers. The truck driver was reported as being unharmed.

As per Wikipedia the definition of the term jackknife is as follows:

“Jackknifing mean s the accidental folding of an articulated vehicle (such as one towing a trailer) such that it resembles the acute angle of a folding pocket knife. If a vehicle towing a trailer skids, the trailer can push it from behind until it spins round and faces backwards. This may be caused by equipment failure, improper braking, or adverse road conditions such as an icy road surface.”

A new device called the “Atlas AJSS” has recently been invented that automatically engages at a speed of 45miles per hour (72km/h) and stays engaged unless manually released. It is actuated electronically and operated pneumatically from the truck’s accumulator air supply. The device prevents the trailer and the truck from becoming over 15 out of alignment with each other. Under normal operating (highway) speeds, this 15 swing does not interfere with driving even on the most winding roads; of course, the system disengages under 45mph to allow for the hair-pin curves of winding mountain roads which are traversed at speeds under 45mph.

Although there have been many attempts to minimize this type of potentially deadly tractor trailer accident over the years with various types of equipment and safety protocols, most have been only moderately effective at preventing serious injury or death to the unlucky person, or persons that are involved in such a wreck, especially if you are in a much smaller and lighter passenger vehicle.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Bereaved Albemarle County Family Awarded $5.25M in Tractor Trailer Death Lawsuit

bmurray — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:08:13 +0000

by John Cooper

An Albemarle County jury awarded a bereaved family $5.25 million for the loss of their precious 16 year old daughter who had been killed last year when a tractor trailer ran a red light and slamming into the car she was driving. The jury’s verdict was decided with only 3 hours of deliberation following a 2 day trial in the county’s civil circuit court.

In their decision, the jury found that the Don B. Swisher Trucking Corporation in conjunction with the McCann Delivery Service along with the trucker, Kenneth Barbour, were all negligent when the semi tractor trailer ran the red light and took away the young girl’s life that fateful day of May 9^th, 2008. The video below serve as an example of the devastation a truck can have when it slams into much lighter passenger vehicles:

">">Tractor-Trailer Truck Collision

The truck driver is currently serving an active 2 year prison sentence from his involuntary manslaughter and reckless driving when he pleaded guilty in a criminal trial that was held earlier this year in Albemarle County. The girl’s parents filed a $15 million civil lawsuit against all of the defendants in October 2008 accusing them of negligence and requested punitive damages.

Openly weeping, the victim’s father, mother and brother listened as Circuit Judge Cheryl Higgins read the verdict: $5.25 million. The family’s attorney mentioned that the family felt vindicated with the judgment. Also, there were no further comments or speculation of seeking possible appeal from the trucking company’s attorney. We would like to congratulate the winning attorney, J Gregory Webb.

The intent of the lawsuit was to inflict as much financial pain as possible to the trucking company responsible for Barbour’s lack of training as a driver as to effectively prevent the company from continuing their negligent operations or at least force them to change their safety training protocol, if they even had one. The lawsuit accused Barbour of not slowing down when he approached the northbound lane of the intersection. The victim was making a left turn onto U.S. 29 southbound when the 1999 Chevy Cavalier was struck by the tractor-trailer. The complaint accused Barbour’s employers didn’t train him properly and did not supervise him adequately by allowing him to drive a rig with defective parts.

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm which focuses on injury and accident law and our attorneys have experience handling truck accident cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office in based in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA) although our lawyers hold licenses in NC, SC, WV, KY and DC. We are ready to talk to you by phone right now—we provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at 1-800-752-0042. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube . Furthermore, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard and Norfolk Injuryboard as a pro bono public information service.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Fatal Tractor Trailer Wreck in Newington, Virginia Kills One on I-95

bmurray — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:00:11 +0000

by Emily Mapp Brannon

The traffic on the northbound lanes of I-95 in Newington, VA was shut down last week when an accident involving a passenger vehicle and a tractor trailer caused the death of at least one person and injured two others. Officials have stated that a Hyundai and a tractor trailer were involved in a deadly crash on a stretch of I-95 near route 7100. Due to the fact that the semi tractor trailer was so much heavier, the lighter Hyundai didn’t have a chance as it slid underneath the massive big rig.

The man driving the Hyundai died instantly from massive trauma at the crash scene from the forceful impact with the massive 18 wheeler. It appears that the driver and passenger in the cab of the tractor trailer were dismissed from the hospital with only minor injuries. Authorities did not release any information as to the exact cause or nature of the fatal crash. Traffic on northbound I-95 was reopened about 3 hours after the wreck at 5:40 a.m.

According to data released by The United States Department of Transportation, the roads of the United States witness over 500,000 accidents each year. Unfortunately, a high number of these types of accidents end in fatalities. This is primarily due to the size of these vehicles that travel between states carrying cargo that can put these trucks at more than 80,000 pounds each. As you can imagine, 9 times out of ten the occupants in a passenger vehicle do not fare very well when they have a run in with a monstrous big rig. In many cases the passengers in the smaller vehicle, such as a car in this most recent accident on I-95, receives the most serious if not fatal injuries.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Virginia Beach Man Killed as Passenger in Fed Ex Truck Roll-Over

bmurray — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:10:34 +0000

by Richard N. Shapiro

Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton

It what can only be described as being in the wrong place at the wrong time, tragically a passenger riding along in a Fed Ex truck was killed last week when the vehicle overturned on Fentress Airfield Road. Virginia Beach Police have identified the victim of this accident as Andrew Copeland, 38, or Virginia Beach.

The fatal Fed Ex truck crash occurred around 4:25p.m. close to the intersection with Long Ridge Road, according to Gus Mojica, the Police Dept spokesperson.

The driver of the Fed Ex truck was going south and had veered slightly to the right as the oncoming traffic was approaching, said Mojica. The Fed Ex truck ran off the shoulder and as the driver attempted to pull back onto the road the entire truck rolled over instead. The driver was taken to a hospital for treatment and his name has not been released.

Deeply saddened friends and family of Copeland never expected that his life would be cut short so suddenly and severely. This incident shows just how deadly a trucking rollover accident can be and should wave a caution flag for all to think twice prior to riding in the cab of any commercial truck such as the one involved with this Fed Ex accident. It makes you wonder if safety is their number one issue or if it is just convenient to put in their mission statement? It seems that speed and corporate profits might fit into the puzzle as well, maybe too much?

Given the large size and weight of heavy trucks, especially commercial trucks such as tractor-trailer vehicles, a serious safety threat can be posed to the vehicle’s occupants in the event of a rollover collision. It has been clearly demonstrated that a large number of incapacitating and fatal injuries have occurred when the occupants were contained in the cab during rollover accidents. In many cases when a rollover occurs in a heavy truck and the occupants were not ejected, injuries sustained were either incapacitating or fatal.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Deadly Tractor Trailer Crash on I-85 in Davidson County Kills Car Driver

bmurray — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:10:59 +0000

In a manner not uncommon to most tractor trailer wrecks, one person has been left dead when an 18 wheeler smashed into the back of a car on southbound Interstate 85. According to authorities, it appears that the car had stopped in the southbound lanes near Exit 91 in Davidson County.

The big rig crashed around 11:30 a.m. that morning and an entire section of I-85 was closed for several hours while first responders and firefighters cleaned up what was left of the car. Eyewitnesses on the scene reported that the car caught fire on impact. Authorities said that the person in the car that was struck by the semi truck was killed instantly. Officials had not revealed the identity or gender of the victim.

Did you know that every 16 minutes, a person is killed or sustains injuries in accidents involving 18-wheelers, tractor-trailers or semi-trucks? In fact, just in the year 2001 alone, some 429,000 large trucks were involved in traffic crashes (both fatal and minor) in the United States. Of those truck wrecks:

4,793 were involved in fatal crashes
5,082 people died
131,000 were injured

The trucking injury attorneys with Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton personal injury law firm are based in Virginia (VA), with an office also in Elizabeth City, in Northeast North Carolina (NC), practicing primarily in the southeastern U.S. and handles only injury law, including car, truck, railroad, and medical negligence cases and more. Our Virginia injury law website is www.HSInjurylaw.com and our Carolina injury law website is: http://carolina.hsinjurylaw.com, the firm edits the injury law blogs Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard, as well as the Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard and also hosts a YouTube injury law video library with over 50 videos covering many FAQ’s on personal injury subjects. Lawyers licensed in: VA, NC, SC, WV, DC, KY.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.

Virginia’s Southbound I-85 Closed for 6 Hours after Fatal Tractor -Trailer Wreck

bmurray — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:11:48 +0000

In a fiery big rig crash, a tractor-trailer driver was killed on Interstate 81 in Roanoke County and has been identified as an Arkansas man. The Virginia State Police identified the driver as Danny Ray Parks, 47, of Batesville, Arkansas.

The victim, Bates, crashed his tractor-trailer into the back of another tractor-trailer causing a rear-end collision at mile marker 141 on Interstate 81 South at approximately 10 a.m. Virginia police reported that the first truck had stopped for an earlier crash.

During the maelstrom both directions of I-81 were closed for almost an hour and Virginia’s Department of Transportation closed the Virginia 419 bridge over I-81 until a VDOT inspector was able to declare it safe.

At one point a traffic backup of nine miles long was reported in the southbound lane as mentioned by VDOT. The bulk of the traffic was detoured off the interstate, diverting a heavy flow of vehicles onto Interstate 581, Peters Creek Road, and West Main Street in Salem.

Danger and trouble rides beside you each day as you share the road with these 18 wheelers. I understand that truckers need to make a living, but it is usually the big companies they work for to blame. A recent official report gathered by just one state’s DOT (Michigan) showed only 2 percent of trucking companies are being inspected routinely. The question you need to ask yourself is: How many more rogue companies and unqualified drivers are there? Have you stopped to consider that as the economy continues to struggle, the easiest decision for financially strapped trucking operations is to cut costs in safety and maintenance? What will the already overstretched federal and state investigators do to contend with the ever expanding unscrupulous trucking companies trying to get away with these unsafe practices?

Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton personal injury law firm is based in Virginia (VA), with an office also in Elizabeth City, in Northeast North Carolina (NC), practicing primarily in the southeastern U.S. and handles only injury law, including car, truck, railroad, and medical negligence cases and more. Our Carolina injury law website is: http://carolina.hsinjurylaw.com, the firm edits the injury law blogs Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard, as well as the Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard and also hosts a YouTube injury law video library covering many FAQ’s on personal injury subjects. Lawyers licensed in: VA, NC, SC, WV, DC, KY.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.