Houston Truck Accident Lawyer Blog

Semi trucks serve a valuable service to the overall economy of this country but their tendency towards certain types of accidents cannot be overlooked. The most common of these is jackknifing which can be traced to thousands of fatalities each year.

A semi truck will often jackknife if they are forced to hit their brakes suddenly causing the vehicle to go into a skid or slide. As the driver loses control, the trailer of the truck has a tendency to slide around at a 90 degree angle to the cab.

A second type of jackknifing may occur when a semi truck is pulling two trailers and one jackknifes as the big rig attempts to stop. Most often this happens in inclement weather but it can also be the result of distracted or intoxicated driving.

This type of incident is regularly the cause of multiple car pile-ups. Consider the following headlines.

A semi truck driver lost control of his rig as it jackknifed in foggy conditions sending it careening across the highway. The truck hit a concrete culvert and trees and then burst into flames. The driver was killed. A second trailer detached and was found standing intact near the site of the crash.

In another incident a semi truck driver lost control of the vehicle and when the trailer jackknifed it caused the cab of the vehicle to hit a concrete abutment. The accident caused the gas tanks to erupt and the entire vehicle was quickly engulfed in flames. The driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

If you share the road with semi trucks always drive with caution and give yourself lots of stopping space between your vehicle and theirs. It only takes a moment for a semi to lose control.

Continue reading "Jackknife Truck Accidents Kill Thousands Each Year" »

There is more than enough tragedy to go around as a result of a drunk driving accident in Houston several weeks ago. An evening that began as a birthday celebration ended with horrific consequences.

According to the official police report four girls were on their way home when the driver of another vehicle ran a red light and crashed into the Excursion - ejecting two girls from the vehicle who died at the scene. A third female died at the hospital later that night. One young lady, survived the accident.

The blood alcohol content of the driver indicated that he was legally intoxicated.

The young girl who survived killed herself with a shotgun wound to her chest this week.

Experts are now pointing out that a lack of access to counseling support after the accident is directly correlated to this young lady's suicide - and who, in hind sight, could disagree?

Her struggle with survivor's guilt was well documented on her computer. Her overwhelming depression may have masked suicidal tendencies that professional counselors are trained to identify and treat. Professionals point out that those who choose to end their own lives usually do not do so because of a desire to end their own life - but more often to end the emotional pain from which they suffer.

There are a number of counseling services in the greater Houston area whose services are free to the community. These include Family Services of Greater Houston and the Texas Department of State Health Services. If you suspect someone is considering suicide do not hesitate to contact these organizations for support.

This terrible tragedy is a warning to all of us that signs of depression or need for help may not be that easy to recognize.

Continue reading "Houston Accident Survivor Kills Herself" »

Until there are no more deaths that can be attributed to drunk driving then it is a topic that will be revisited with regularity in this blog. The ugly truth is that more than half of the 45-50,000 highway fatalities each year are caused by drunk drivers.

That translates to 25,000 people in the United States alone that would be alive if it weren't for the negligence - more aptly named stupidity - of those who daily dare to gamble the lives of others with their foolhardiness.

I take to my soapbox on this topic again because it appears the pain and hurt of drunk driving resonates and ripples like a stone to a pond - and knows no bounds.

Today's headlines state that a young girl of 14 who survived a drunk driving accident only a few weeks past - that meanwhile claimed the lives of her sister and two friends - took her own life out of despair.

This poor child is as much a victim of drunk driving as those whose lives were lost several weeks ago. Remember yourself at fourteen and the flood of emotions that accompanied even the slightest of experiences was often magnified beyond proportion. Now try to imagine coping and coming.

I have seen this same situation in the past when a daughter lost her mother in a truck accident. The strain was to much too much to bear and everyone wishes that we would have seen it coming.

When a loved one is lost, it is an extremely difficult situation to deal with, particularly when it happens suddenly in an accident. If you have lost a loved one please seek professional help, and the support of family and friends.

The fatality of a loved one from an automobile or semi truck accident can be particularly debilitating to the families for several reasons. First, vehicle collisions are particularly heinous and it is very difficult to prevent family members from envisioning and carrying memories of a loved one's final moments.

In addition, the immediacy of a vehicle fatality can place a family in financial turmoil as well. This may be because of the loss of income from the family breadwinner or the need to cover costly funeral expenses.

It is recommended that those who have experienced the loss of a family member turn to a support system that includes family and friends but seek professional counseling as well.

There is a well documented grief process that counselors have been trained to monitor. They are also trained in recognizing and treating signs of long term depression and even thoughts of suicide that may appear as victim's go through the stages of grief.

These include shock and denial, pain and guilt, anger and bargaining, depression (reflection and loneliness), an upward turn, reconstruction and working through, and, finally, acceptance and hope.

In the first, people often deny the reality of the loss of their loved one. Shock may further insulate their emotions. The stage may last for weeks.

Shock is replaced with excruciating emotional pain and one is often wracked with guilt, remorse and helplessness. Anger and bargaining follow. This is a particularly dangerous stage because one may place blame on another loved one causing irreparable damage. With proper support the sufferer can come out on the other side of depression to acceptance and renewed hope.

The death of a loved one will remain with you always but it important to find a way forward through it for the sake of those who care about you.

Continue reading "Seek Help When Struggling With a Wrongful Death" »

In another Houston highway fatality, a tow truck driver was killed today in a truck accident. According to police, the driver was in a hurry to beat another tow truck to the scene of a car accident to tow the vehicles.

Reports indicate that 2 wrecker drivers were racing down Jensen Road early this morning in an effort to get to the scene of another wreck first.

On reaching an intersection one of the wreckers swerved to miss a car at a light and sideswiped it, losing control of the truck and hitting two polls and rolling over. The truck driver died at the scene of the accident.

Reports indicate that the other tow truck did not stop at the scene of the accident. Fortunately, the driver of the car that was sideswiped sustained only minor injuries.

In a bizarre twist, the driver of the car who police said was not at fault for the fatal truck accident was over the limit for blood alcohol and was arrested for DWI, according to reports.

This is not the first reported accident relating to wreckers trying to get to the scene of an accident to secure the tow. My heart goes out to the family members of the truck driver who perished in the accident.

This accident shows that even large vehicles are in jeopardy on the highways and

Continue reading "A Wrecker Driver Killed in Houston Truck Accident" »

One resource or another places the number of vehicle deaths annually at anywhere between 43,000 and 50,000. Let's go with the higher number because it's easier to visualize - and it means there are a thousand deaths per state in this country each year. Divided by 365 days and that works out to be about 3 deaths per day per state. (Of course these are estimates -states with smaller populations have smaller death statistics whereas as recently as 2007 there were 3300 fatalities in Texas and a large share of those in or around Houston).

Well here we are in August and if the statistics are even remotely accurate there should have been around 2000 deaths to date in Texas from car and truck accidents.

Try as I might to get this information - it eludes me - in part because statistics are compiled annually.

Never fear, though, a review of the daily news offers information on the latest accidents and fatalities. Truly, you can't open a newspaper, turn on a television or radio station or surf the net in any way without being confronted by the stark reality of vehicle collisions.

I stumbled on a series of 25 amateur videos posted on You Tube that depicted truck accidents in all their horror. Would I suggest you watch them? Only if they serve as a cautionary reminder of how quickly the roads can become deadly.

I would however, recommend taking your teenage children to an emergency room sometime before they get their license so they can see the realties of unsafe driving in as much graphic detail as you can stomach.

Continue reading "50,000 fatal vehicles accidents annually " »

Today in Houston, a man died after the pickup in which he was riding struck an 18-wheeler parked on the shoulder of the road police reported. The truck accident occurred on the 3100 block of West Loop North early this morning.

Reports indicate that a passenger in the pickup truck died at the scene. The pickup driver was taken to Memorial Hermann Southwest hospital for injuries.

The police are still investigating the cause of the accident fatal 18-wheeler accident.

18-wheelers have very specific rules regarding parking on the side of the road. The rules are covered in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and provide express guidance to truck drivers parking their trucks.

Many times, truck accidents are a combination of factors all working together to cause the accident. In this case, hypothetically, the pickup driver may be partly responsible for not staying in a lane of traffic. Likewise, if an 18-wheeler driver did not follow applicable truck safety rules the truck driver and the trucking company may be partly responsible for the wrongful death of the pickup truck passenger.

While the specific factors of this accident are unknown at this time, in any serious truck accident it pays to get facts from the scene as early as humanly possible.

Continue reading "Accident With parked 18-Wheeler Kills Houston Man " »

What could possibly be more heart wrenching than seeing an innocent child suffer?

Yet, as I proved in my previous blog, this is exactly what is happening at an epidemic rate on American roads.

Frankly, driving is a dangerous undertaking that is treated by the majority of drivers with callous disregard by for its potential to maim and kill. While I will apologize in advance for climbing onto my soapbox - occasionally even I - as an accident lawyer who witnesses the aftermath of accidents and the tragedy that often lays in its wake - am dumbfounded by the statistics of children and car accidents.

There was not a line in my last blog that did not leave me sick at heart but of all the things adults have been known to do - driving with their children while intoxicated takes my breath away.

Driving under the influence at any time is taking a big chance and often results in loss of someone else's life. But to deliberately place your own child in an automobile and undertake the act of driving drunk is unconscionable

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been in existence since 1980. Founded by a mother grief stricken with the loss of her daughter in a drunk driving accident it was and remains an effective national campaign against driving while intoxicated.

Certainly it has raised the level of national awareness of the dangers and has led to stricter laws against it. Yet, national statistics confirm that drunk driving deaths continue to occur at record rates.

What are we going to do about this?

Continue reading "Drinking and driving- with children?" »

A semi truck ran over a car early in the morning and killed at least one person and injured others. The fatal Texas truck accident happened outside of Balch Springs, on the LBJ Freeway early in the morning.

As the photograph below shows there was not much left of the car that was run over by the 18-wheeler.

The truck wreck happened on the LBJ Freeway and closed the highway for several hours pending investigation by authorities. As of today no details have been released about the preliminary results of the investigation or the victims names.

My heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and I hope that those who survived the initial impact recover quickly and come home to their loved ones.

Truck drivers are regulated by states and also by the federal government in an effort to you ensure safety of the motoring public. Given the size and weight of tractor-trailers and the reduced stopping power of a semi truck it is imperative that trucking companies and their drivers strictly adheres to the safety regulations.

Continue reading "Truck accident turns deadly in Texas" »

At least four different vehicles were involved in a fatal crash on Houston Highway 59 not far from Interstate 45 turnoff.

An 18-wheeler struck a tan sedan and caused significant damage and probably the fatality. Officers are still investigating the cause of the fatal truck accident and no preliminary conclusions are available at this time.

Reports indicate that rescue workers had to cut the passengers out of the car. Whenever a fatal truck accident occurs in Texas, the DPS typically sends an experienced accident reconstructionist to fully reenact the wreck.

Many times, the reconstruction takes 2-3 weeks before the official report is published. In this truck accident reports give us no clue as to responsibility for the death.

Trucking companies use quick response teams to get to the scene and witnesses as soon as possible and usually, within hours of a fatal wreck.

If you have lost a loved one in a truck accident, call an experienced and reputable truck accident lawyer as soon as you can after the accident.

Continue reading "Fatal truck accident Houston" »

A two-year-old boy climbed under a commercial vehicle that was hauling trash from an empty house. The toddler was unnoticed by the driver of the truck or his passenger. Apparently, when the truck drove off the little boy got caught in the undercarriage.

It was reported that the two-year-old boy lived next door to the empty house and was out playing. The drivers had no idea that the little boy was under their truck.

This tragic accident is one that just rips your heart out. I can only imagine the pain that the family of the little boy feels. I also feel sorry for the truck drivers who did not know the little boy was under the truck. I'm sure that this tragic accident is going to be very difficult for them to deal with as well.

Continue reading "Toddler dies in tragic truck accident" »

In Houston, a driver of an 18-wheeler was fatally injured in a accident with another truck. The 18-wheeler caught fire and consumed one of the vehicles.

It is unknown at this time if the driver died from blunt force injuries or from the vehicle fire. The accident happened on US 59 just outside of Rosenberg, Texas.

The identity of the truck driver who was killed has not been released pending notification of next of kin. Authorities are investigating the 18-wheeler accident and no preliminary results are available.

The 18-wheeler accident closed the southbound lanes of Highway 59 four several hours. The cleanup of the 18 with her accident was a significant undertaking.

Continue reading "Two 18-wheelers crash outside of Houston and truck driver killed " »

A high school football coach with more than 200 wins for his teams died in an afternoon truck accident. DPS is investigating the accident but reports indicate that the coach's truck may have left the roadway and rammed into an embankment.

Reports indicate that the coach apparently died at the scene. There is no other explanation of the accident. The coach had coached for three different high schools over his lengthy career.

One of the most influential people in young men's lives is their coach from sports. Especially, at the high school at age when many young men seem to have less interest in parents advice, but listen closely to their coach.

The discipline and commitment that some coaches gift to their athletes can well serve the young men and women going forward in life.

Continue reading "Revered high school football coach dies in truck accident" »

In an excellent article by Houston Chronicle writer Yang Wang the growing problem of Houston hit and run automobile accidents was outlined. In the expertly researched article Ms. Wang identifies over 100 people killed or seriously injured in hit and run accidents in Houston since 2008.

The article goes on to explain that only about half of the hit and run accidents end up with cleared case prosecutions. In other words, in only about one half of the hit-and-run accidents is the driver found.

This clearly is a growing problem for Houstonians and one that leaves many victims with out justice civil or criminal.

Even when the hit and run driver is located the prosecution of such cases is difficult according to sources quoted by Ms. Yang.

I compliment the Chronicle and Ms. Yang as well as staff writer Lise Olsen who contributed to this article.

For a map showing the locations of the hit and run accidents see below:

blogs.chron.com/newswatch/2010/04/houston_hitandrun_mysteries.html#more

This is a question that many people asked themselves after they have been injured in an auto or truck accident. Particularly when an adjuster calls and indicates it looks like the accident was their insured's fault and that compensation should be forthcoming.

The reality of the situation is that the adjuster is paid to pay as little as they possibly can for the claim. If the adjuster pays $.20 on the dollar, he or she may very well earn a bonus for the quarter.

Many people call the law firm after such assurances by an adjuster only to learn that what the adjuster had in mind for reasonable compensation was really a joke. It is then, often six months to a year later that the people first realize they need a reputable personal injury lawyer.

Unfortunately, the longer the victim waits to seek professional help on his truck accident case, the more damage done to the insurance claim.

Critical evidence that was available early on is often now gone. Witnesses have been interviewed with leading questions designed to shift responsibility from the truck driver to the victim. Crash data often is lost in the shuffle. Trucking companies only have to keep select documents so long.

Continue reading "Why hire a truck accident lawyer?" »