California Injury Blog
An 86-year-old man was killed in a Huntington Beach car accident after a vehicle crashed into the back of a pickup truck causing the truck to roll over. According to a news report in The Orange County Register, police officers responded to the incident the afternoon of Aug. 31 at the intersection of Warner Avenue and Nichols Lane. Officials said both vehicles were traveling east on Warner Avenue when the car struck the back of the pickup truck. The impact of the collision caused the truck to roll over.
The man, a passenger in a 2000 Toyota Tacoma, was ejected from the vehicle. The driver of the truck, an 85-year-old woman, was hospitalized with major injuries. The 24-year-old male driver of the car that rear-ended the pickup was also sent to the hospital for evaluation of injuries. No arrests or citations were reported. The incident is still under investigation.
We offer our deepest condolences to the family members of the man who was tragically killed in this rollover accident. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. We also wish the injured the very best for a speedy and complete recovery.
What Caused This Crash?
Based on this news report, it appears that both vehicles were traveling in the same direction when the car struck the pickup truck from behind causing the truck to overturn. The driver of the pickup truck was seriously injured while her passenger was ejected and fatally injured. There are a number of unanswered questions here.
What caused the driver of the car to rear-end the pickup truck? Did alcohol or drugs play a part? Was the driver distracted, fatigued or otherwise negligent at the time of the collision? Was the passenger in the pickup truck wearing his seatbelt? Was his ejection from the vehicle caused by a defective seatbelt or seat restraint system? We hope officials are looking into these and other issues in order to determine precisely what caused this fatal collision.
Importance of Contacting an Experienced Lawyer
In such cases, it would be in victims’ and their families’ best interests to contact an experienced Orange County car accident lawyer who has successfully handled rollover cases and seatbelt failure cases. Often, local law enforcement agencies may not have the knowledge and resources it takes to make determinations such as whether a person was buckled up at the time of the crash. For this reason, we often see police rule that a person was not buckled up and was therefore ejected from the vehicle.
Our product defect attorneys will look at other evidence in a rollover crash including the condition of the seatbelt, belt marks on the person’s body (which indicate he was buckled up at the time of the crash) and any blood stains on the belt. Such cases need the eye of an experienced crash reconstruction expert who can help bring the truth to light.
Source: https://www.ocregister.com/2018/08/31/one-dead-after-rollover-crash-in-huntington-beach/