As we’ve previously discussed in this blog, truck accidents have the potential to be extremely dangerous. The force of an 18-wheeler can do significant damage to a smaller vehicle, and the time and distance it takes for a fully loaded truck to effectively slow down or stop may not be enough to avoid a collision. As a result, truck accidents are often fatal for drivers and passengers of any cars involved.
But truck accidents can also be deadly when they involve other trucks. If two trucks come too close to each other, they might not be able to avoid a collision on time due to the difficulty of stopping, and swerving to avoid that collision tends to be much more difficult due to trucks’ poor handling ability.
An accident between two trucks recently caused the death of a man from Greenbelt, Maryland. The man was driving a commercial box truck on Interstate 95 in the early-morning hours of Aug. 16 when his vehicle collided with a tractor-trailer. According to a Delaware State Police sergeant, the tractor-trailer was heading north on I-95 when the driver decided to make an illegal U-turn by using an emergency cross-over. As he pulled onto the southbound lanes of the interstate, he entered the path of the box truck, which was in the left lane.
The box truck driver attempted to swerve around the 18-wheeler, but hit the back of it on the driver’s side. The box truck overturned onto its left side, causing the cargo box full of soiled laundry to separate from the frame and spill its load. With the driver trapped inside the cab, the wreckage of the truck came to a stop in the right-hand lane.
Most commercial truck drivers are under intense pressure to deliver their goods in the shortest time possible, so it’s not entirely surprising that the tractor-trailer driver chose to make a U-turn, rather than continue until he found an exit that allowed him to turn around legally. But turning in front of traffic only added to the many risks that the tractor-trailer driver carried with him. Either he or his transportation company may end up having to compensate the family of the other truck driver, who had his own load to carry and was doing so safely and responsibly.
Source: Delaware Online, “Md. man killed in predawn I-95 crash,” Robin Brown, Aug. 17, 2012
- Our firm handles situations similar to the one described in this post. To learn more about our practice, please visit ourMaryland truck accidentspage.
