Truck Accidents

Published on: July 15, 2013

Tragic Gainesville Accident Kills Three

A tragic accident happened last Friday, leaving three people dead and six more injured. The four vehicle accident happened in Gainesville on Georgia Highway 365. The collision left two cars pinned underneath a tractor-trailer.

According to reports, the accident happened at around 1 in the morning Friday, and involved four vehicles. These included a Ford Escape, a pick-up truck, a Jeep, and a tractor-trailer.

Police stated that based upon their initial investigation, they believe that the cause of the accident may have been when a pick up truck turned left into the path of a tractor-trailer heading northbound. Sadly, the driver and passenger of the pick up were killed, and another individual died as a result of the chain reaction accidents.

Published on: January 28, 2013

Sewer Truck Hits and Kills Elderly Man In His Own Yard

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

This wrongful death case was most unusual. A man was killed in his own front yard.

The day started out in a normal way for the couple in this story: They ate breakfast, talked about their plans for the day, and the man then went outside to spend some time in his front yard. He enjoyed puttering about. His wife later found her 71-year-old husband dead on the front lawn, perhaps not an unusual discovery, given the gentleman’s age. However, it was clear that he had been run over by a vehicle of some sort.

When the shock of the discovery wore off, the wife contacted an injury lawyer about filing a wrongful death lawsuit. As it turned out, the suit was filed against a city worker who had been driving a sewer truck at the time the elderly man was killed. The 46-year-old driver was charged with felony hit-and-run, resulting in death, and misdemeanor death-by-a-vehicle once the police department had completed an accident scene reconstruction.

Published on: January 13, 2012

It Is No Surprise that 18-Wheeler Accidents Are on the Increase

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

The next time you are out on the highway, look around you. There are far more potentially deadly big rigs on the road than there ever used to be.

No one wants to hear that there are more accidents every year on the highways involving semis. Unfortunately, though, it is a hard, cold fact. In 2010 alone, close to 500,000 commercial trucks were in wrecks in the U.S. That overall figure includes at least 100,000 injuries and more than 5,000 deaths. In 2009, there were only 3,200 fatalities, says the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

If these figures were not dismal enough on their own, the Institute predicts an increase in commercial trucks on the roadways by 20 percent by 2012. You do not have to think too hard about what that means in terms of accident statistics. What causes trucking accidents?

Published on: February 26, 2011

Tractor Trailer Wrongful Death Kills Four

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Big rigs tend to attract a lot of attention. Unfortunately, much of it is the result of them being in yet another horrendous wreck.

This wrongful death case captured the attention of a lot of people when it happened in 2006. Four were brutally killed on the highway after they had stopped to avoid another accident that had taken place. The driver of the big rig that was behind the woman never saw the line of other vehicles stopped to wait to get the all clear signal from the police before proceeding.

The result of this accident, when the rig plowed into the line of waiting cars, was the death of four people who never knew what hit them. The wrongful death lawsuit in that case ultimately settled for $35.25 million, including damages and compensation. And the driver? The driver was tried on four counts of second-degree manslaughter and found not guilty.

Published on: February 15, 2011

Woman Dies After Being Sandwiched in Big Rig Wreck Recounts Georgia Injury Lawyer

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Big rigs virtually dominate American highways. Unfortunately, they also dominate in accident statistics.

Driving these days is not like it used to be. There are way more large trucks on the highways than there ever were. They are what keeps our nation moving by transporting goods that let us live the lives we have become accustomed to having. However, when one of those rigs goes haywire, the consequences are never pleasant.

Consider the case of a woman who met her death in a very bizarre fashion; in between two semis, like the filling in a macabre sandwich. She was stopped at a red light one cold and foggy morning. In front of her was one 18-wheeler and behind her was a second big rig making its way to the light. The woman expected that the second rig would stop. It did stop, but only after it plowed into the back end of her car, driving it under the truck in front of her. She was killed on impact, leaving behind six young children.

Published on: January 31, 2011

Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer Cites Back Injuries as Common in Truck Accidents

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Surviving a truck accident is not always easy. Often, there are serious injuries, many that involve a victim’s back.

“By far, the most common injury in a truck accident is a back injury. They have the potential to be catastrophic, since the back is our major foundation and any injury to the spinal cord may turn out to be devastating. In particular, spinal injuries and herniated discs are injuries that can alter a person’s life for good,” said Stephen M. Ozcomert, who handles personal injury cases, accidents, and malpractice law in Atlanta, Georgia.

The back is what holds people up, their foundation. It is vital to one’s overall health and physical wellness. As many people with back injuries can attest, back problems usually lead to other health issues. This is why injury to the spine is considered to be one of the worst things anyone can sustain. Without back mobility, the rest of the body just does not cooperate.

Published on: January 15, 2011

18 Wheelers Virtually Own the Road with Deadly Consequences

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Beware the “no zone” that travels with 18-wheelers. Stay out of that area or you may pay a high price – your life.

You know what it is like driving a smaller vehicle near an 18-wheeler. It makes a lot of people pretty squeamish, and with good reason. Even if you haven’t been in an accident with one of these gigantic death traps, you may have seen one or read about one.

It would be hard not to hear about a fatal big rig accident, since just about one in every eight traffic deaths involves a collision with a tractor-trailer. The causes? Typically, they range from trucker negligence to mechanical flaws and from driver distraction to manufacturing defects.

Published on: November 20, 2010

Underriding involves one vehicle driving under a semi

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

Don’t confuse underriding with underwriting. These are two different things, and one will kill you.

Just when you think you may have heard everything, you hear about a fairly graphic term that happens in certain accident cases called underriding. Underriding refers to a wreck where a vehicle or a motorcycle drives under the trailer of a big rig. These accidents are not pretty, are mostly fatal and if they aren’t, the survivors sustain catastrophic injuries such as brain injury, spinal cord injury, shattered bones and severe crush injuries.

In underriding cases, there is no question you will need a highly experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer to help you get the proper compensation to care for you for the rest of your life. If you do not survive your injuries, then that same lawyer may help the family file a wrongful death lawsuit.

Published on: August 28, 2010

Big rigs are involved in at least 21 percent of all fatal accidents

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

At over 80,000 pounds each, it’s no wonder that 18-wheelers are involved in ugly, and often fatal, crashes.

Not many people realize that a fully loaded big rig can weigh that much. Comparatively, most cars weigh only about 4,000 pounds. It’s not hard to see why smaller vehicles tend to get completely demolished when hit by an 18-wheeler. In most truck-versus-car collisions, there isn’t much left of the car, while the truck may come out of it with just a few dents and scratches.

Picking up the pieces from this type of wreck is tough, but evidence needs to be preserved, the integrity of the scene needs to be maintained, and the accident itself needs to be reconstructed to determine fault, if that is not clear from the scene. Despite the fact that big rigs only represent about 3 percent of all the vehicles on the road, they figure into the crash statistics as being involved in at least 21 percent of all fatal collisions.

Published on: May 25, 2010

Another 18-Wheeler Death in the Nation

By Stephen M. Ozcomert

This accident was unusual, as it was a single vehicle 18-wheeler crash. It cost the trucker his life.

This 18-wheeler accident happened on I-95 in Oklahoma. The trucker was hauling equipment for country and western singer Carrie Underwood when his vehicle veered to the left shoulder and scraped along 400 feet of guardrail. During the impact, the fuel tank was torn open, igniting the diesel as it spilled. The flames consumed the driver side of the bus he was hauling, as his truck slammed into a bridge abutment.

The abutment was located right where the I-95 passes over another road. At that point, the trailer tumbled over the embankment and landed on the median of the road under the abutment, blocking both southbound lanes.