Articles Posted in Truck Accidents

A driver from South Florida is in the hospital with severe injuries after a tractor trailer loaded with 2-liter Coca Cola bottles flipped onto his car in Miramar. According to an article on CBS News’ Web site, the big rig driver, for some reason, lost control of his vehicle, which toppled on to a Honda Civic, trapping and injuring driver Eduardo Ibarro.

According to fire department officials who carried out the rescue operation, Ibarro was significantly entrapped in the vehicle. The tractor trailer was actually on top of part of the passenger’s side of the Honda trapping the patient’s leg under the car’s dashboard. The Coca Cola bottles were reportedly strewn all over the roadway, which crews spent a good deal of time cleaning up. The driver of the big rig was reportedly unhurt. Ibarro is said to be recovering and suffered non-life threatening injuries.
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Five people were killed and six suffered injuries in a van crash when a tractor-trailer slammed into their vehicle. A group of 11 people, including staff and residents of a group home for the mentally disabled, were on a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo, according to an Associated Press news report. The report says that the van had stopped at an intersection and then pulled right in front of the tractor trailer on a rural highway.

The five people who were killed were Sheryl Maiolini, 53, of Charleroi; staff member Mary Watkins, 43, of Ellsworth; and residents John Maise, 61, Richard Paquet, 43, and Julie Hugus, 41, the AP reported. Three were residents at the group home and two were staff members. Six others were taken to area hospitals with injuries that included a broken clavicle, a broken hip, and head, neck and spinal injuries. They are all expected to survive, the news agency reports.

Officials say the impact of the crash knocked the van on to its side and pushed it roof-first into a cinder block storage facility, causing the vehicle’s roof to crush and cave in. Officials don’t believe the big rig was speeding. The tractor trailer reportedly belonged to Stocker Trucking Co. in Gnadenhutten, Ohio and was driven by 44-year-old Steven Rouse, an Ohio resident. Rouse was reportedly treated for minor injuries.
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A judge ruled this week that the driver of a runaway dump truck and the company that employed him must both stand vehicular manslaughter charges in connection with a horrible traffic accident in Rancho Cucamonga that killed one person and injured several others, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported.

The judge categorically stated during the hearing, the newspaper reports, that both Adam Ahlberg, the driver, and the company, Clark Grading, knew that the truck had defective brakes before it hit the road on June 16, 2006. The heavy truck careened out of control on Archibald Avenue because the brakes failed and struck pretty much everything in its way. It reportedly came to a stop only after running a red light at Arrow Highway and colliding with an Omnitrans bus and another Rancho Cucamonga public works truck.

Officials described the death and destruction caused by this runaway dump truck as something similar to a bomb explosion. The driver of the city truck, Angel Calzada, a 20-year veteran of the public works department, was killed in the accident. Investigators discovered that not only did Ahlberg know that the brakes on the truck were problematic but the problems were so bad that the California Highway Patrol once ordered the truck off the road after issuing a citation for faulty brakes. Of course, Ahlberg’s employers knew about it because he repeatedly noted the problems on his log as he is supposed to.
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A 38-year-old El Cajon man died after a big rig slammed through his backyard and sent him into his swimming pool, missing his toddler daughter by inches, according to a Channel 10 news report. Officials said Kevin Vicary and his 2-year-old daughter were near the pool in their home as Vicary was cleaning it.

The chain reaction accident occurred when a Ford minivan ran a red light and struck the semi truck. The big rig then careened out of control and hit two other cars before crashing into the fence and going into the pool, the article said. The impact of the crash threw Vicary into the pool. He died from the injuries while his daughter was unharmed.

The truck driver and people in the other vehicle suffered bruises and minor injuries. Police have still not charged or cited anybody in connection with this incident. However, officials are saying preliminary investigations do show that the female driver of the minivan, whose name has not been released, ran the red light at a nearby intersection and triggered the crash.
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Our firm recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of the three daughters of Ronald Lee Nichols who was killed in a truck accident when an 18-wheeler, allegedly driven by Timothy Ray Johnson, jumped the curb and ran over Nichols. We filed the lawsuit in the Alameda County Superior Court seeking unspecified damages on behalf of Nichols’ daughters.

It’s important to note here that Nichols’ daughters filed their wrongful death lawsuit only after the Oakland-based trucking company denied their claim for compensation. Why did they deny it? Because they say Mr. Nichols was unemployed at the time, had a prior criminal record and that his daughters are grown and not minors.

The tragic incident occurred Feb. 18, 2006 when Nichols was walking on a public sidewalk adjacent to the East Bay Municipal Utilities District in Oakland. It was at that time when the large truck ran him over and crashed through a wrought iron fence surrounding the municipal utility. According to a police report, officers at first didn’t even think anyone was injured until they looked under the 18-wheeler. They then saw Nichols under the front axle impaled through his chest by the wrought iron fence.
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A Claremont couple was reportedly killed in a big rig accident when their car plowed into a jackknifed big rig on the Interstate 8 in Mission Valley. According to a news article on Fox News’ Web site, the tractor trailer veered out of control and rammed into a median wall and came to a stop across four of the five freeway lanes in the wee hours of the morning. Barely a minute after the big rig jackknifed, the 2004 Kia Amanti driven by 64-year-old Frank Bilyeu plowed into the stalled commercial vehicle and burst into flames, the article said.

Both the driver and his wife, Shirley Bilyeu, were pronounced dead at the scene. They had to be identified using dental records, Fox reported. The driver of the big rig, Abukar Suri Ali, of Greensboro, N.C. and a 27-year-old passenger riding with him in the truck’s cab were uninjured. Ali reportedly told investigators that he lost control of the semi when he swerved to avoid an animal on the freeway. California Highway Patrol officials are asking anyone who saw the accident to call them at 619-220-5492.
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A 21-year-old man suffered severe injuries in a big-rig crash in Santa Ana after he slammed his Honda Civic into the back of a semi truck, The Orange County Register reports. The accident happened at the 100 block of E. Dyer Road near Main Street, according to police reports.

Initial reports from the investigation apparently revealed that the semi was pulling out of a driveway on Dyer and had started heading east, which was when the Honda crashed into the rear of the truck. The impact of the crash left the Civic wedged under the truck. Firefighters had to extricate the driver from the crumpled car, the Register reports.

Officials said they came to the conclusion initially that the driver of the Civic was going too fast because of the large amount of skid marks they found. They say he must have seen the truck and stepped on the brakes, but couldn’t stop in time. The big-rig driver was not injured.
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I came across an article that very well explained the problem of overloaded big-rigs and the dangers they pose to themselves and other vehicles on our roadways. We often hear about big-rig drivers losing control of their vehicles and slamming into others on the road. Often, these types of accidents result in fatalities. And usually, it’s the drivers or passengers of the other vehicles who get seriously or fatally injured, not the occupants of the big-rigs.

What makes these vehicles lethal on our highways is their size and weight. As this article well states, the greater the weight of the truck, the more likely that it will become a death machine that bolts out of control. Overloaded trucks have an increased propensity to be involved in accidents because the increased weight means the truck cannot stop quickly and is more likely to lose control.

Traffic investigators believed that overloading may have been a factor in a Mission Viejo big rig accident where the truck, overloaded with electronic equipment, lost control and slammed into the back of a family’s minivan, crushing and killing three young children. In that case, the driver was also speeding and the overloading just worsened the situation.
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Here is a list of some of the big rig and big truck accidents that occurred around the country recently:

“Pig rig crash?”: A stretch of the 60 Freeway in the City of Industry was snarled after a big rig carrying live pigs spilled a load of the animals on the freeway, killing some of the animals. According to an article in CBS News’ Web site, the big rig accident occurred on the connector from the southbound San Gabriel River (605) Freeway to the westbound 60 Freeway. The bus driver, identified as Claud Emmett Martin, 58, of Arizona, was driving south on the transition road when he changed lanes and steered to the left, officials said. He suffered minor injuries in the incident.

Dangerous big-rig load: A woman was dead in Pasadena, Texas, after a tank fell off from a big rig and crushed her sport utility vehicle, the local KPRC Channel reports. According to local police, the tractor trailer with an oversize load went under a railroad overpass that was too low for it. The woman died at the scene. The big-rig driver apparently had state approval to travel in this route, which is required for such cargo.
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Four Orange County residents died in a violent crash involving a big rig on a Tennessee highway when they were driving cross-country to visit family. The car went under a tractor trailer and got wedged underneath the big rig, the Jackson Sun newspaper reports. Those who died in the crash were: Judith Stele, 69; Rheta Kanter, 72; Brandt Stele, 69; and Gloria Friedman, 65.

The accident occurred when, for some unknown reason, their 2003 Toyota Avalon crossed the median into oncoming traffic and went under the tractor trailer. Judith Stele was driving the four-door sedan and it’s not clear why or how she lost control of the vehicle. Alcohol was reportedly not a factor in the fatal crash. All four who died were residents of Laguna Woods, the newspaper reported. The driver of the tractor trailer was not injured in the accident. The Orange County Register reports that the four friends were driving on a clear day and in good weather.
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