Personal Injury Law

St. Louis Women Nearly Crushed by Semi-Truck's Load: A Tractor

By Jeffrey Lowe

Last week, I saw a truly bizarre accident on TV station KTVI (Fox 2). On July 8, on Highway D in St. Charles County, two women were almost crushed inside their car by a Caterpillar grader that was being transported by a flatbed semi truck in the next lane. Evidently, one of the truck's wheels slipped off the road, causing the grader to shift, then come crashing down on top of the women's car. The victims, who were ironically on their way to pick up a friend to take her to the hospital, were both seriously injured and had to be rushed (one airlifted) to the hospital themselves.

You can view the report here:
 

According to the report, the grader was originally tied down. However, it does not appear to have been tied down securely enough to ensure the safety of these two women, or anyone else unlucky enough to be sharing the road with this truck. Under federal and Missouri law, truck drivers and trucking companies must tie down their cargo securely. They must also check the reliability of the truck itself and its equipment, including brakes and tires whose failure could cause a serious accident. Any violation of those laws is a form of negligence -- the legal term for extreme carelessness -- and the trucker and trucking company can be held legally liable for any resulting accident with a St. Louis tractor-trailer accident lawsuit.

Any Missouri commercial truck crash lawyer can tell you that the deadly hazards involved with large trucks are too numerous to count. All that weight, plus the inertia involved in driving, turning and stopping, spells serious trouble for anything in a big rig's path -- or in this case, vicinity. It is imperative to make sure that any load the truck bears is absolutely secure. When truckers and their trucking companies fail in this duty, they can be held legally liable in a Missouri semi-truck accident lawsuit, allowing victims to claim all financial losses resulting from the accident, such as hospital bills and lost income. They can also be compensated for any injury, pain, disability or wrongful death that the incident has caused.

Full post as published by Trucking Accident Attorney Blog on July 17, 2009 (boomark / email).