Two men were killed in a multi-vehicle freeway accident that started in the northbound lanes of the 15 Freeway in Rancho Cucamonga. The accident was triggered when the left rear tire tread on a Honda sedan separated, according to a news report in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.
The Honda with the blown tire driven by a 41-year-old Long Beach man, then crossed the northbound lanes and struck a Ford E-250 15-passenger van, which in turn spun out, crashed through the guard rail and into a pickup truck. Both the driver of the pickup, 27-year-old Jesus P. Velasco of Pomona, and the driver of the 15-passenger van, Viorel Taru, 49, of Loma Linda, died in this horrible auto accident. The Ford van and the pickup truck were involved in a head-on collision, officials told the Daily Bulletin. Two other vehicles were also involved in a collision.
Tire tread separation has been the subject of numerous product liability lawsuits – and for good reason. The results of tire tread separation can be catastrophic. They frequently cause tire blowouts, which as in the case of the Honda driver, will cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle. When the tire tread and belt separate from the carcass of the tire, it results in serious accidents and even rollovers that have caused thousands of major injuries and deaths.
The families of the victims in this crash would be well-advised to retain an auto product liability attorney to look into whether it was a poorly designed or defective tire that triggered this accident, which took the lives of two people, both of them unsuspecting drivers going about their business. It is also a well-known fact that 15-passenger vans do nothing to protect their occupants during an accident. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s detailed report on these vehicles talks about their inherent dangers. One of the men who died in this crash, Viorel Taru, was traveling in a 15-passenger van. An experienced personal injury attorney will help the victims and their families investigate the incident with the assistance of accident reconstruction experts, which is especially needed in such complicated crashes.
The Honda’s tire manufacturer could well be held liable for the losses and injuries in this incident if the tire is found to be defective or poorly designed. We are extremely sorry for the loss that the two men’s families have endured and hope those responsible for the incident are held accountable.