Orange County CA Wrongful Death Law Blog

Because they are so much bigger and heavier than other vehicles on the road, large trucks are potentially more dangerous than passenger cars. An accident that might be relatively minor if had happened between two sedans can easily lead to serious injury or fatalities if one of the vehicles is a semitrailer.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration closely monitors statistics in truck and bus accidents, looking for trends and clues about how to prevent accidents and keep people safe. In a recently released study, the FMCSA found a disturbing trend: In 2017, 4,657 large trucks were involved in fatal crashes, representing a 10% increase from the year before. Another measure known as the large truck involvement rate, which is the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes per 100 million miles traveled by large trucks, rose by 6%. The 2017 statistics represent the most recent available.

In many traffic accidents, one party is clearly at fault. For example, one driver was stopped at a stoplight when another driver failed to hit the brakes in time and collided into the rear of the first driver's car. In this type of accident, a court would almost certainly find that the second driver caused the accident through negligence, and therefore should be held liable for the damages suffered by the first driver.

However, many car accidents are not so simple. Often, both drivers did something that contributed to accident, or worsened the damages of an accident. For example, imagine an accident where Driver A is driving over the speed limit when Driver B, distracted by a text on his cellphone, crosses lanes and collides with Driver A's car. Driver A is badly injured, requires expensive medical treatment, and is unable to return to work.

Motor vehicle accidents can happen to anyone in Costa Mesa and throughout Orange County, even law enforcement officers. Any accident can cause severe injuries and the worst crashes can lead to fatalities. For people who have been injured or suffered the loss of a loved one in a motor vehicle accident, it is vital to contact a legal professional as soon as possible to prepare for a lawsuit.

A California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer was killed when he was hit by a car during a traffic stop. The officer had stopped a driver for speeding and was on the side of the road when another vehicle swerved onto the right shoulder of the interstate and hit him. The driver was arrested for the incident. The officer was taken to the hospital, where he died.

According to a recent study reported in the national media, texting and driving bans are having at least modest success in reducing the number of car accidents. The study examined the number of emergency room visits in various states. The researchers concluded that in states that had some sort of texting and driving ban, emergency rooms saw a four percent drop in the number of patients, suggesting that the bans really do prevent some dangerous car accidents.

There were a couple of interesting points about this study. For one, it seemed that, at least to some extent, any ban on texting and driving was better than no ban at all, as the study examined states with laws that differed in their degree of breadth and strictness. However, states with more comprehensive bans on texting and driving saw an even sharper reduction of visits to the emergency room.